The World Is Changing Fast! Do This Now To Prepare - Neil Howe

What do you think the experience is going to be for our younger generation of this fourth try? For all the Millennials out there, you know, for people who were born in the 80s or 90s, um, this is this is going to be your chance to remake the world. What do you say about a speaker? He is, uh, an historian, uh, a demographic expert, a long-term fiscal policy expert. Uh, the smartest organizations around the world listen to what this man says. For myself, I can remember, uh, I think there might be a couple here that have been here that long. I remember Neil being in an event as a trader in 1998 when Tony came out on stage and said, "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I have to tell you about this book that I just read." Um, and I haven't yet, um, um, digested it all, but it's going to change my life. It's going to change your life. Anyway, on a little rant for 45 minutes about this book called "The Fourth Turning." And, uh, I was blessed enough to be in that room. We know what a great guiding force in his life, uh, your work has been for so long. Um, we're so ever grateful to have you here. Talk about this amazing new book that obviously is out. "Fourth Turning" is here. We've been talking about for a little while. Uh, chapter one is going to smack you in the face. "Winter is here." That's chapter one, ladies and gentlemen. So can we just not delay this process anymore and, and, um, with great fanfare, uh, welcome, uh, one of the most brilliant people of our time, uh, the author of that book and many, many books before that. I'm sure you guys are with these words, but please give it up for the one and only Neil.

It's been, uh, 25, 26 years, uh, since, uh, uh, Tony bought that original book, uh, in 1997. And, uh, he did, um, he did some work even earlier in the 90s after our first book, "Generations," it came out in 1991. One of his, you know, power tapes, power lectures that he did, I think back in the early 90s. Anyway, it's been a long time. We're all older now. You know, we're all kind of in our own new phase of life. And, and that's a good segue, actually, into generations, uh, and history and so on. You know, we, we all go through phases of life. Uh, we, we grow up as kids, we come of age into some sort of adulthood. Uh, we still have a lot of learning to do as young adults, and then we get older. Um, and we all have our own phases as we move through our own lives. One thing that I try to show, uh, both in the original book and in this one, is that society also goes through phases, right? There's such a thing as a life cycle for society, right? Uh, and we all go through, and society itself has its, has its spring, summer, winter, and autumn. And I think one thing that's fascinating, and I do reflect on that in, in this book, is what makes history so interesting and actually what pushes it forward, uh, is the intersection between the seasons of our own life and the seasons of history itself. Uh, because that's what shapes us. And, uh, young, and that's what later on stages, our interaction as parents and leaders, as we shape history. Uh, and most of the people in this audience, know it or not, are shaping history. I mean, you guys are all out there making decisions which affect where the country's going. Um, and, and a lot of those decisions you make, your lifestyle, all those decisions in your businesses, in your families, as public leaders, in your communities, that are actually shaping where this country is going, is a dim reflection of the lessons you learned as children and coming of age. And that is why generations mattered, because each generation learns somewhat different lessons from its own childhood. Different generations have different childhoods that reflect their own, uh, age, location in history. And, um, and, and that kind of is a good stage, you know, for, for, I think, you know, what we talked about last year, uh, in Florida, and, uh, and what we talk about, you know, what we talk about now. Obviously, in this new book, we cover a lot of new ground, uh, that we didn't in the original. Um, we look a lot more closely, you know, back when Bill and I wrote "Fourth Turning," the idea of a crisis era, of the winter season, history was still way out there, right? I mean, that was a prediction of something that was going to start in the, in the, you know, maybe the late teens, go through the 2020s, and so on. Uh, now we're, we're in it. We're here, right? And now we look at it up close. And a lot of what we do in this book is look closely at earlier fourth turnings, and look at, and give them kind of a taxonomy, a chronology. What are the patterns? What usually precedes a fourth turning? We, you know, we talk about forerunners. We talk about, you know, what happened with the, with 9/11 and the, uh, you know, the Iraq, Afghanistan wars, you know, before the, uh, finally hit 2008. We talk about World War I, you know, before the Great Depression hit. We talk about the Mexican-American War before the Civil War hit. And then we talk about the catalyst itself. How do we actually enter the fourth turning? The last two fourth turnings, the entry was a global economic crisis, uh, a collapse in financial markets, uh, which had worldwide implications, of course. That was Black Thursday in, in 1929, uh, which just impacted the old world, America especially. And more recently, it was 2008 with the global financial crisis. Uh, that's the, that's the catalyst. And then we talk about the regenerations.

We feel, uh, again, phobia. We're out there. There are no boundaries. There are no limits. We don't know where anything's going to go. We all feel helpless. How are we going to reorganize our public lives? And so we start refining ourselves as members of small platoons at first, and then we started joining these larger tribal communities. Um, well, we saw that in the 1930s. New, uh, tribal, you know, we had different points of view about where America should go. Uh, to, uh, people on one side, uh, the 1930s with a red decade, you know, that was a people, people who believed in that thought of the president as, as, uh, Franklin Stalino Roosevelt, that was his name, right? Uh, people on the left saw that as a fascist decade. I mean, democracies around the world were falling to fascist str. James, that was another part of what was going on back then. Uh, uh, we saw this same thing, obviously, you know, the 1850s going into Civil War. We saw the same thing during the American Revolution. You were either a Tory or a patriot. You know, if you're on the wrong side, you got tarred and feathered, right? So we're in, we moved into that era. Um, and suddenly the stakes are higher and higher. We realize that the vacuum is at the highest level now. You know, we feel, we feel pretty settled in our own family lives, our own immediate community lives. We have no idea where the nation is going any longer, right? And that becomes, that leads into the crisis. And talk about that in the book. That is the, the, um, the, uh, the final, uh, regenerations.

Long time fall apart as the country, right? We either win or we surely lose. And well, we all know when that happened in the 30s. That actually didn't occur until Pearl Harbor. And it really occurred after the fall of France. And talk about that, suddenly America begins to mobilize. We all know when that happened in the Civil War. And you go back and look at these earlier events. We finally realize that this was really big. This was going to settle things not only for our own lifetimes but the lifetimes of our family. Um, and that's still in our future. And then finally, we move toward what I call the ecesis and the climax. And the climax is when the final act, the decision that decides it all one way or the other. And then we finally move to the resolution. We spent a fair amount of time in this book too, not just talking about the climax of the crisis, but what's the, what's the spring going to be like? What if we move ahead to the mid-20s? What's it going to be like for our kids? What can I do? Uh, and I think that might come as a surprise to a lot of people because we, we have a, I, I wrote a rather long section on that because they described the period in which big institutions actually work again. There's a new sense of entity, a new sense of public trust. Um, uh, we have a great sense of belonging. Individualist, and, um, I'm sure a lot of, uh, exers out there. I spent a lot of time being pretty radical individualist, right? I get to feel a little bit out of place, right? Suddenly here's this world in which everyone wants to fit in. Well, that's going to be really a challenge, right? For just lifelong countered bias, always going on your own, taking care of ourselves, you know, can't trust anybody. And now you're in a society where everyone needs to trust others. And people have brought up the trust. That's going to be to a lot of people, uh, particularly those who bore most of the brunt of getting through the crisis. That's going to seem like a new golden age. And that's very much how we finally broke out of the last fourth turning, you know, going into, uh, the, the, you know, kind of what we call the American High, the, the, uh, the, uh, you know, the, the good times, right? This was the presidencies of Truman and Eisenhower and John Kennedy, uh, really the period between V-E Day and V-J Day and Kennedy's assassination. And that was a new phase of life, right? But we had the same thing after the Civil War, after the new American Revolution. We had the same thing after, you know, around the year 1700, when the colonies had this new sense of solidarity, new sense of united mission of Britain. And we kind of take that back. We talk also, I think, uh, a little bit about a contingency mystery, you know, what, what can change this pattern? And, and most of all, what does this mean for our own lives? And I, I know Scott, you want to come back to that. But what does it mean? You know, what, what I should do? How do we participate in that? And I do have an epilogue to the book. And then I'll just close out my, my initial comments to you, Scott, with this. I do have an epilogue in which some people will find maybe a little strange, but, but I talk about, um, I talk about Navajo sand paintings, and I talk about, uh, I talk about the Bhagavad Gita, and I talk about eternal lessons in how we all have roles. We're not just unguided missiles out there, just in a completely random mess. That there is a rhythm and in nature and an order to how things play out. And we do have a role. We do have a script. Sometimes it's a personal script. Sometimes, in the case of our generational membership, it's a collective script. And whether you like your generation or not, you're of an age or not. And, and very often, we often detest people our own age. We just think, you know, I'm part of the, the bulls and bears, I mean, just the worst possible creatures that ever came upon the scene. Nonetheless, you're of it. And guess what? You're fated to live the rest of your life with them.

Couple of things I want to ask you. Um, one is, it's got to feel good to be so right, doesn't it? I mean, it's got to feel good. You know, when I was going through the list of things that were in the early books of "Generations," I mean, that's 1991, for God's sake, "Generations," and then, uh, and then obviously "Fourth Turning" and so forth. That, that's got to, they betray my own generation. So I'm a former, always love to be right, right? I ask questions by Gen X, I might say something else, you know, that's true too. True. You're right. I'm rich, you know, or something else, you know. Can you speak to this fourth turning? So the fourth turning that we're in, what are the characteristics and traits of this fourth turning? I mean, I know we know where it is, but tell me, what do you see, uh, obviously similarities? Are there some differences? And then we might talk about what, what's going to happen, how governments change and society changes during it. But what about this specific fourth turning that we're in right now?

When we talk about a crisis era, Scott, we're talking about a generation-long era. It's kind of like talking about winter as a season. There will be great days. You know, there will be calm days. There'll be days of good weather. Might be weather, some good weather. Um, I think we all realize in some sense that the year we're living in is one profoundly different than the one parents had at the same phase of life, or or the era that, uh, we recall, most of us here in this audience, when we were in our 20s. It's just a different era. It's not just we're a different age. This is a different time we're living in, right? Our institutions aren't working the same way. Nothing is functioning like it did. Um, and I think there's something else, and I think this is what causes profound pessimism, uh, about where we're living, is that we see that on our current track, everything is going to get worse. Um, I mean, I don't care what you name, um, but the, the, the middle class is getting, uh, smaller. The, the, the distances, inequality between the privileged and the unprivileged is getting wider. The, the, the, not just the inability, but the admitted inability of institutions to solve anything is becoming more clear. No one actually depends on public. Look for already told people, people's feeling about depending on public benefits. Half of all exers don't think they're going to get any Social Security. I mean, there's, there's, we feel profoundly that as time goes on, nothing is holding any longer, right? And almost any problem you will look at, we see that their leaders don't seem to be competent. They haven't a clue. We don't know how to, we're going to get anything done. Uh, we seem to have ever less sense of community. As I point out in the book, uh, half of Americans think we're on the verge of civil war. And now we look, what are we in any shape to take on a foreign adversary? You know, you kind of add that on, and you're thinking, where the hell are things going? And I think, but the reason I say that is this is the good news of the fourth turning. Is that the fourth turning, in a way, when you realize that our current trajectory is hopeless, that we need some huge transformation in our society to to change the trajectory, that's where the fourth turning becomes positive. And we can't go back. We can't go from the 2020s, you know, back to the early 60s, you know, what I mean? If you're just, I'm speaking metaphorically, right? We can't just move back and try to change society that way. History has no rewind button. There are forces in history, just like forces in nature, which only go one direction. These are called laws of entropy. These are these are baked into the laws of thermodynamics. You can't take a waterfall at the bottom of a waterfall and actually wait until there's a time in which all those drops will like gather at the top of the waterfall. Birds don't fly backwards. I mean, I mean, I could go through all these examples, but there's so many things in history that only go in one direction.

Yeah, and what I tell people is, it is possible to recapture so much of that, uh, and maybe even recapture without any of the bad side of that era. You know, that we looked back and you look back, the American High, there are a lot of things that today we, that would bother us, right? To live back then. But we can, we can enjoy the positive aspects of that era. But we have to move forward to do it. Yeah. And of course, turning to ages as the only times at which we achieve those, uh, those golden ages. All occur after a crisis. That the first golden age in history that people talk about was the age of Augustus, and it followed this huge period of civil war, you know, at the late Republic. And that was, um, that was the, you know, that was the, that was the first great golden age that, you know, people used to talk about. But this recurs constantly in history. To, um, it's, it's, I get the analogy. What you're saying is, and you talk about the book, you know, people do come together as a group and a community when they're not focused on self and individualism and so forth. People, when they take less risks as individuals, they take more risks as a group. I don't like to say the question, but I mean, do we need a war? Like, I mean, I, I, I mean, is that what we need to to get us through this fourth turning? I don't want to be so, so pessimistic or hopeless in to say that it requires a war. But it does require a sense of total public urgency to for us. In other words, you need something to raise that adrenaline level and make everyone realize that we either, you know, as, as Benjamin Franklin put it after signing the the Declaration of Independence, we either all hang together or we all hang separately, you know what I mean? And, and that's the moment you, you need that. It turns out war is very effective to des. Got it. Say, but you need that prospect of ruin if we don't act now. And I think all of you realize that again, in your own personal life. I mean, sometimes that's what it takes. You know, we used to call it scared straight, you know what I mean? Um, but, but I, I, I, I just say historically, total wars have always occurred in fourth turnings, and every fourth turning has had a total war. That's all I can. It's a big sample. You can say that's accidental or coincidence or whatever. I'm just saying that's been it. But I, the eternal optimist that I am, do not say it's necessary.

And I think it's, it's possible that as governments have become more sophisticated, as we've moved along this linear time frame, um, it's possible that we could have an organized conflict that wasn't total chaos. It's possible. I, I do reflect, and in my more sober mood, that if we had possessed a weapon of mass destruction, uh, in, in 1863, yeah, I, I'm guarantee you either Richmond or Washington would have been in ashes, right? And as you point out in the book, every time we've had that power, we've used it. Well, in World War II, we put the best and brightest young people in our country in Manhattan, private all the way to devise a weapon of mass destruction, which we used immediately, right? As soon as it developed it. So look, I'm very sober about that. And I simply say, but I think it's better to be clear-eyed. You know, this is the potential, and we need to take it seriously. Um, yeah, that's what we're facing. We, we have an awesome, uh, trust to do the right thing, to make the right decisions. And obviously, if you make the wrong decisions, the consequences of that are, are very long-lasting. We think about government's role right now, and government changing. How do you see government? I'm going to say the American government, but for me, it's all Western liberal democratic governments. How do you see them either being forced to change or wanting to change or needing to change to to keep us moving forward?

Well, must change. I mean, look, we, we are all, we, we all believe in Earth, you know, we, we are all, we all belong to mity in that sense. Um, and I think it doesn't necessarily mean that we are, um, uh, that we believe in progress, where that we're Christian, you know, or, or we're Muslim, or, you know, I mean, any other religions of the book believe that that history is fundamentally about time beginning and time coming to an end, and man's faith is to where word, you know, the fate of mankind is to constantly progress in some way, and it's all going to end at some point. Um, and there's a, there's a secular version of that, uh, which is a rogue of progress and become ever more powerful. It's kind of the Hod Deus, you know, the, the, uh, the, uh, this Ray Kurzweil, you know, that that transformed human. We're going to download our wetware into hardware, and we're just going to live, you know, we're going to be immortal. But that vision, uh, of a kind of long-term collective destiny for our species or people like us, is something that we all grew up in. And I think we're used to thinking about that as our general frame of reference. I think what's really interesting, and what I do point out in the book, is that before mity, uh, and this is certainly very common in primitive societies, or just simply traditional societies, ancient societies, you know, pagan societies, polytheistic societies, that they didn't really share that. The ancient Greeks, as brilliant as they were with Plato and Aristotle and and and Socrates, they had no concept of the of of linear progress. History was simply about infinite repetition. All things are a circle, you know, um, in, in their rendering. And I think what's, what's really interesting about about us is that as we become more linear in our beliefs about time, our social behaviors have become more cyclical. And part of the book is explaining that trend. Do, because what happens is, because every generation thinks it's their mission to improve society, yeah, we're always trying to correct for the excesses of the last generation and do it right this time, you know? Uh, so Bill Clinton, when the Boomer comes into the White House, remember in 1992, and he says, "I'm going to run the most ethical administration in history." You know, I mean, and then so it's laughable in retrospect. But the point is, let's just recognize that's not a new thing, right? Every new generation figured out something that no one else figured out, and I'm going to do it right this time. And what that does is it creates a sequence of compensations and changes in direction. And before you know it, we actually have an actual cycle, yeah, of behavior among among leaders, uh, and they don't realize how they're playing out. Uh, they, they, they're playing out the circle.

Let's talk about, um, this current fourth turning. So most of us here are in a certain season of our lives, um, not all, um, but most. One of the things we've noticed in in Tony's audience in the last, uh, uh, little chapter since COVID, that our audience is now much, much younger. And so, uh, Tony's audience is now hugely, you know, under 35 years of age. Let's talk about, uh, the different generational experience of this fourth turning. I know that intersection is really important. So we've got people here that are in that sort of, you know, uh, season where they're sort of, you know, 40 to to 60, and some not there, but most there. What do you think the experience is going to be for current younger generation of this fourth turning? It's going to be empowering ultimately. And I think that's the message I would give. But for all the Millennials out there, you know, for people who were born in the 80s or 90s, um, this is this is going to be your chance to remake the world. Um, now, like all things, it could be pregnant. Uh, your, your kids will do a number on you later on. And you, as you recall, Scott, in the very last chapter, I, I actually alluded a little bit to the awakening that's getting great them. And it may not be pleasant for, but that's after they built this new world. So we are all within the sidey go. And I think it's going to feel enormously empowering to this generation. It's going to be, uh, a collectively of power to experience, I think, in that it's going to be very different than anything Gen X ever had. So those of you who are Gen X, mostly in your 50s and 60s, I'm speaking to you, Gen X. You know, mostly, you know, um, you were raised as, as, you know, the quintessential throwaway kids. You know, you had to look after yourselves. Everything was dangerous. If, if, you know, if you didn't look after yourself, no one else would. And you took that into the fall season of history. You took that really into the 80s and 90s when you were young adults and starting your careers and started building it. You were all nomads. You were all out there for yourself. You, you individualized merit. Boomers may have sort of showed the way and broken down institutions they wouldn't work, but Gen Xers really were the ones who lived that dream, right? All of the very individualistic. And I'm just thinking of how America changed when Gen X was at age, you know, no longer that the era of permanent organization, but we started talking about NRI organizations and, and pre-agency, and everyone was hired as an individual contractor. I mean, Gen Xers are really used to that world. Nowhere to find benefit pensions, it's all defined contributions. And if you didn't contribute, well, tough luck, you know what I mean? I mean, everything was up to you. And by the way, I point out again, an analogy with you with the Lost Generation. The phrase "it's up to you" was coined in the 1920s by the Lost as young adults. And that was the idea, everything was up to you, you know, back in the 1920s. And that's again, an era, a very weak government, and we were a very individualistic society. Millennials are really trying to create a different world, one which is much more community-oriented, one in which institutions look after them, and they contribute to the institution. This is very alien to the Gen X mind. And I think that is a, that is a, uh, a generational contrast that will age as these two generations grow older, and as Millennials begin to take over America, uh, at the peak of the of the fourth turning and just after the fourth turning, that's typically when, you know, Millennials actually finally begin to take over. Be a little bit like the GI generation finally getting elected in in large elections in the 1950s and beginning to take over Congress and state houses and so on, and ultimately bringing about the society, you know, and all the, and the Lost Generation, by that time, as old people, are just looking on it, utterly mystified, and quickly made their departure. They just didn't get it. Um, but, but we're going to see that same contrast. FDR, when he was, um, when he was running for his reelection, his huge reelection, this was 1936, by the way, when their reelection was over, Congress typically, few were than I think only about 60 or 70 Republicans, all the rest were Democrats, something 300 and something Democrats to maybe 60 or 70 Republicans. That was the wipeout election of all time. The New Deal was utterly triumphant. And FDR, in his speeches, he knew this was generational. He said, "I see, I see an America that's been corrupted by an older generation of money changers who kept them saying, 'It's up to you. It's, you know, every man for himself.' I see a new generation coming along. They believe in the broad highway where we all, you know, cooperate with one another." And of course, he was pointing to this new generation that would eventually be, uh, the greatest generation of World War II, who would think nothing about, uh, all joining the war, you know, all having that collective experience, and then coming over, and they would all build the suburban homes that were all identical, and they would live in gray flannel suits that were all identical. And, you know, they had no problem with that. That was how do you think that might play out now? If we talk about in the beginning of our conversation, talked about the, the inequality, the rising economic inequality that's existing in Western societies now, that hasn't existed before. And you, you predicting that this millennial generation will cause that to change in some way?

Share, Thomas came out with his book on, you know, like capital and, you know, this, that, I can't remember it, about six or seven years ago. And he said that, you know, it's the nature of capitalism, for very economic reasons, that, you know, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, you know, inequality rises. But then he said, of course, there was a huge exception. It just happened to be an exception. He says, it's an exception. I say it's the rule because it's happened repeatedly. But he says, yes, now, where this time, from the late 30s to the to the late 60s, when throughout the West, inequality declined. A huge decline. I mean, if you look at almost every measure of income and wealth, it declined. It declined hugely during World War II, and it declined during the 1950s and most of the 60s. Started rising again at the end of the 70s. And, you know, and that's really been the Gen X experience again, rising inequality and so on. But, but you think about it, things got much more equal during World War II and during the period after. Why? Well, because government ran full employment economies. We had all these new social safety nets. We had higher tax rates. And by the way, a lot of the Lost Generation with fortunes got wiped out during the Great Depression, right? I mean, in other words, it was created an instruction on a massive scale, on a public scale, on a national scale. And this new generation was, was much more equal. I mean, just think what, what living in the suburbs meant. Everyone got the same home, yeah. But it was not just the fact of economic inequality. Can't measure it, you know, and actually number. But it was the ethic of equality. Even people that were rich during the 1950s kind of hid their wealth, you know what I mean? You didn't flaunt it like you do today. And I think actually today, even, it's already beginning to change. I think we're already beginning to feel that during that the crit for turning, you know, to flaunt wealth, a man's privilege, well, this is no longer what it once was. And I think Millennials feel that much more strongly than the older generation. I get, I get that constantly. The word luxury, for Millennials, a kind of a shunned word. And I can go down a longer list of those things. But I think Millennials feel that, you know, if you do have a lot of money and privilege, you, you, you kind of share with all your peers. I mean, that's what you do. That's, that's otherwise, you're really sort of ostracized.

How do you feel this the millennial generation is they're leading us out of the fourth turning? How do they deal with all those things? You know, I think they're all for the ride. At the, like they realize they're not going to be making the big decisions as to which way it goes. They're just not in the age yet. I mean, yeah, of course they can vote, but, but, you know, the, the leadership generation is all, I mean, typically people would be entering positions of real leadership in late midlife and, you know, sort of early, you know, sort of that, that, you know, another phase of life has to go by. So, so I think the way they see it, you, I, I want to vote for whichever, whichever direction gets us all on board somehow. And I think for a lot of Millennials, it didn't even matter which one it is. Yeah, all on board going. Because whenever we actually have a consensus and decide to move forward in something that works, and I, I'm not talking about whether it's, you know, overhauling healthcare in this country, which obviously doesn't work, to the joy university system, which is which is broken, you know, along with student loans and that horrible system we have for shoveling money at the universities. But you, you just got down the list, nothing works. I'm saying if, if anybody just simply takes over and isn't what, then it would be a plus. And we'll go along with that. Because once we can start destroying some of these old institutions that don't work, uh, that better solutions will become obvious. And this is why creative destruction is so work. And this is what crisis does. We only make our huge new policy innovations, Scott, at times of crisis. Yeah. And this sounds completely counterintuitive to most people. If you ask people, they think, well, gee, you know, the, the right time to make huge changes in our institutions is on a clear sunny day, you know, and we're all affluent, we can think about it. So we never do that. You look back in all of American history, you look back throughout history, we never do that. We always make our biggest, most profound decisions for the future when we're backed into our corner, worried about our country might not even last until tomorrow. And I, in the book, I use go through example after example about, yeah. And, and, and this is a, this is a lesson. So I think this is why so many, uh, Millennials, and there are two pieces of data to back this up, it's not just true in America, it's around the world. Millennials are actually turning on democracy itself. You ask Millennials, they're much less likely than older generations to think democracy is a good idea. And, you know, you ask them why, and they just said, well, democracy is is an excuse for older people to talk about everything and then, uh, you know, through through process and procedures and lawsuits and whatever, never do it.

Your stats in the book, they're almost alarming when you're, when you read the stats. If democracy is a biocracy to Millennials. In other words, older people, sooner or later, always veto everything. Yeah. And that means that nothing changes. And the old get to keep what they have, right? Because the incumbents get to get what they have. And, you know, and they get to get their benefit, they get to keep, right? And so nothing changes. And this is why, uh, why younger people, interestingly enough, are are actually drawn to these populist leaders. And this is actually something shown by the, the Cambridge Center for the Study of Democracy. They looked around this around the world. And it turns out the Millennials really are drawn to. I mean, if you want to know, uh, and this is particularly clear if you look at, you know, who supports, you know, Bolsonaro, or Xi Jinping, or the Hun that's in Myanmar, or, we look at, look at the Philippines, look at, look at, look at Italy under Giorgia Meloni, look at some of these recent elections in Southern Europe. But you see it again and again, young people want a big change. And I'm convinced that it's less the ideology involved, and more just they want a big change. The young always win when things change, because there you are, they can inherit the new order.

Let's, um, talk about, uh, for my lines here on the call, we had an event, I don't know if you know that, in February, which is our finance event. And we had a couple of speakers come on who are generationally wealthy. So a couple of families came and spoke that were, you know, 10, 12, 15 years into generational wealth, which is an unusual thing, given that many of our lines are building wealth and thinking about what happens next with that wealth. They've all got children that are sort of about the ages we've been talking about. If you were to give people some thoughts or coaching or wisdom into how do we, I don't know, protect and prepare to ride out this, uh, stormy chapter till the end of, uh, 2030 or 2033? How do we prepare for that and protect ourselves? And then maybe after that, how do we, uh, maximize or take opportunity from what's going to come? Like right now, if I'm, if I'm any of my lines, I've got a big bucket of money, how do I protect that and prepare that for my children? And what do I do with that?

I think there's there's some broader to. And one is, um, of letting your children know first of all, this is just ancient advice of of what you believe in by by your example, right? I think kids always get that. I mean, if, if you are managing the family's wealth, and you have some real interest in life, in the country, and you are pursuing it in a very earnest way, and you have a vision for what this, where this country ought to go, and you're trying to do it, you know, and you're trying to look at a practicable, broad vision of how we move forward, and involve your kids in that, that is a huge plus. You know, I often, I have met people with a lot of wealth, and they, they kind of don't really involve their kids with it, right? And they all tell their kids, this is what you got to do. They don't live that life yourself. I mean, this is sort of an old story, right? If, if you do that, you're going to have problems. Uh, but I, but I do believe that you can explain to to your kids as they grow older, and as they come of age, get to the age where they actually can, you know, enter careers themselves, they see a vision from their future which includes them, and includes their generation, not just them as privileged people, but but gives a role for their peers, their friends, gives a role for all of them. And remember that this Millennial is a collaborationist organization. They're a bunch of normcore players, you know, they, they want to fit in with their peer group much more than Gen X has ever cared about their peers, or or even Boomers for that matter. It's very important to them. And I think that's important, uh, as, as kind of the first step, because I think Millennials know more than anyone that the only way we get to get out of this is by being able to practice community virtues in a much more rigorous way than we've had to practice them in the past.

Now, I hope you guys all took notes on that because that's really profound if you're looking to impact your children. Because our model, because we're their same age, is so different to theirs. Because we're so self-focused, because we really were that generation that was left alone and left to work it out, and latchkey children, and left to just, you know, find their own way. But our children do not want that. And they really do want to be included in the greater good and bring the community along. And so selling a story to your children about wealth that includes their needs, their desires, their values, their perspectives, is, I think, really. And I, I would, I would say there's one of the reasons why you find so many young people with money, you know, often sort of requests and so on, sort of generational wealth, as you put it. And I know this from all investment advising stats, they're the ones buying ESG. Right? I mean, that look, oh my, and I got, why is that? Because they feel guilty about their worth versus their peers. And I think what I see very often for parents is the first thing they say is, and, and believe me, I, I would leave this step next. That he is James is a, is a pretty strictly set of criteria, right? I mean, I've written extensively on the, I, I kind of know how bony it is. But it'd be a simply hard on the fact that ESG has a bunch of, you know, stuff drained up, you know, by the blues, you know, to, to leverage government power over our lives. That's not going to make it with near your people. What you really need to show them is that, um, there are big challenges for the next generation. And I do take them seriously, right? And, and, and here's, here's how I take them seriously. I think why you want to realize, I guess, what I'm saying is, their their passion for ESG isn't so much that they care about ESG per se. They really want to feel that they're bonding with their own peers. Yeah. And that's kind of what I'm getting at.

Well, which is so different to our generation. Exactly. I mean, they want to be part of the big brand. Gen Xers wanted to be away from the big brand because they were going to survive better if they weren't part of the mainstream. And I, and I think Millennials realize the opposite. And, and one way I explain that is by saying that if you grew up in a time where big institutions seemed to be working okay, uh, that the winning strategy is selfishness because you, you do better off, you know, just getting for yourself and letting, you know, you're not worried about the community. But if you come of age when the community itself seems to be in trouble, yeah, altruism is the best strategy. This, this is the Wilson, you know, Edward Wilson and his collaborator, they used to put it. He said, he said, in that among individualism, selfishness is strategy. But among groups, altruism is the best strategy. So if you're aware that you are one group of many, and your entire group may perish, then suddenly it's very different. But you will prize. And we, we often wonder how the, how the GI generation, you know, the greatest generation, came out of World War II. How did they become such team players? How did that, where did that come from? You know, the Jimmy Stewarts and all those, the, uh, a-shucks kind of, you know, that attitude that came out of these people were brave pilots and splashing a sh T-bone, where did they get that? Well, they got that because as they were coming of age, a very different reality struck them, that it wasn't about individuals getting ahead of each other. It was the fact that their entire group was in danger. And then suddenly the whole strategy changes. And for the rest of their lives, the GI generation always thought that altruism was the better strategy. And so they were always sacrificing themselves for the government, doing what the government told them to, fitting in to get along, right? I mean, but this is one way. Ads and celebrated lightness and sociability. You know, have a Pepsi, please. I don't know if you remember. Probably before your time. And I remember those commercials. Have a Pepsi, please. You know, be sociable, have a Pepsi. There was no appeal to doing your own thing and breaking away. That all came later. But here's, here's the point I'm trying to make is that for that generation, altruism was a winning strategy. And it remained that until the day they died. Until finally, when we had people like George Bush Senior, he seemed like anti-delian, like, where did that come from? Because the nation completely moved on to a much more self-oriented ethic. And so we look back upon that as like some shadow of some weird past. Well, history teaches it comes back, right? It comes.

Let's change hats. Um, where are we investing? Where are we investing geographically based on generations? Is it different in Southeast Asia? Is it different in the Southern Hemisphere? Is it different in Western Europe? Where are we? Is it, is it, uh, industries we're looking for, uh, to, uh, be safe and be optimized?

Well, look, I mean, in any great crisis, we expect volatility. The economy will usually speed up. One thing I continue to remind people is everyone aware how how serious the Great Crash was and how great the Great Depression was. And I have an answer. What was it? What was the second worst economic downturn of the 20th century? And no one knows what that is. John, why? It's the recession of 1937. I mean, it was enormous. The stock market had went down by by over 50%, and the GDP declined is the second largest. It was a period of enormous volatility. So crisis eras are ones in which we can expect more volatility of the, of the, you know, post-2007 GFC variety, or even, you know, very briefly during the pandemic, or sort of the post-pandemic crash that we see. We're going to continue to see.

That and what that means is, is that, um, uh, you want to get out of, you know, momentum, um, uh, high leverage, high beta, all of that, you know, this, this doesn't work well. And I say that because we go through these crashes of public confidence, but then we also go to these periods, particularly near, near the, uh, what, what we call the eirós and the catalyst, where suddenly, once we decide what we want to do as a nation, we're all concerted to do it. You know, I blame it goes to zero, uh, inflation takes off, and suddenly, even though we're, we're asked to pare back on all our personal expenditures, the nation as a whole wants much more, almost than what we can possibly deliver, even if we're all working to the same goal.

And really, what you saw in 1943, '44, '45, and, and, and, and then going on through the Korean War, inflation simply caused by the fact that this nation was growing so big, so massive, so quickly, and enhancing its power to change the world so quickly, we couldn't even keep up, right, uh, with, with, with this, this massive expansion in what we're collectively capable of doing. I believe that there's tremendous untapped potential in America, right? That's just been completely caged by the fact that so many institutions don't work. But, but if, once that's untapped, that, that causes the, the, the opposite, not, not the crash, but the, but the incredible booms to take place. So, but what you want to do is, is get out of, of, of, of any strategy which is a one-way strategy. I, I do think that, uh, given the, the fact that we can have these enormous falls, particularly not over the economy, but in any given sector, once the economy starts rolling, uh, that, that, that those are the things you want to do. Geographically, you want to diversify, Scott, um, and you want to look at other areas of the world which are likely to be, you know, better off over time, long term. So, a lot of those would be, um, places, um, uh, economies in, in, in Asia, for example, that were very strongly. Probably, you don't want to choose economies which, which could be, that could be in the middle of, of a geopolitical conflict. So, I, you know, I'm, I'm not habituating investing in China, but I think already what's doing very well are the China alternatives, right? All the other countries in Southeast Asia which show, don't show the same fertility decline. We still have very powerful demographics going forward. Uh, as much as the economy is malign today, I like the Philippines a lot. It, uh, it's, uh, it's a, you know, it's a, an angle phone country, a lot of English speakers, um, and it's, uh, it's has great workforce potential, and it's going to be growing demographically through the end of the 21st century. Uh, so it's a big player in my book. I think India is, is, is a better horse right now. Uh, it, uh, it passed China in population, as many of you know, in 2022, um, and it is, is expected to be this, the end projection by the end of, by 2100, it will be twice as large as China in terms of population. China will be declining rapidly. That's a whole another discussion we could go into as what it's happening to Chinese birth rate and so on. Uh, but that's an actual mess, right, right. Uh, China is really imploding demographically. And, and obviously, given the fact that globalization is now in reverse, right? So global trade as a share of global GDP has been falling, ups and downs, but, but ever since 2007, it's been falling. And in this new age of sanctions and possibly geopolitical conflict, it will fall even more. Is just sort of the general proposition. Now, it might gain in specific cases, we have two countries working together and trading assets, but I think is the, the general mood of globalization isn't usually, is a huge reverse. So the big multinationals are going to suffer, um, and I would be particularly cautious of economies which depend. There's a great book out, if any was interested, I, in this aspect, I thought it was a good book. It's a book by Peter Zeihan, uh, who, it's, it's called The, The End of the World Is Just the Beginning. And he's a demographer, but more importantly, he's an expert on, um, on metallurgy and, and sort of the, uh, the sourcing of, uh, of, of commodities and resources around the world. He points out that many of these countries around the world, some of them in the Middle East, but many of them in the, uh, in the Far East. His best single example is China, um, face all kinds of bottlenecks, um, things that they absolutely die if they don't have, starting with energy, and, and obviously with energy and with a lot of basic commodity inputs in their economy. That, that no one depends upon globalism more than China. And obviously, it's not doing a lot to, to, to, right. This seems to be a problem for China. Um, I, I think in just in terms of, of asset groups, uh, I would, I'm bulletproof of commodities, manufacturing, um, particularly defense, as well as new materials, and materials, you know, as a sector. I mean, if you're looking at S&P sectors, manufacturing, materials, these have been very poor sectors, uh, for most of the past several decades. Obviously, we've been, you know, you know, throughout all the 1990s, after the, the fall of the Soviet Union, defense was declining, and, and, you know, we all believed in the post-material universe. In every crisis, the importance of materials and reshaping the outer physical world, right? Rebuilding the harbors and the buildings and our living structures, the thing that brings us together as communities. What I find very interesting in the past, you know, in the fall seasons and the unraveling, you know, when we think of the 1980s, '90s, and, and God, is that all the industries that did good were all the personal gadgets, you know, what I mean? There were our cell phones and the flat screen TVs and the things you manufactured, and they rerouted all over the world, and we became more and more efficient at doing them. But everything that was community-oriented in what we produced, that is to say, involves an element of sort of community cooperation and producing it, actually separated negative productivity as one of the reasons why we don't have, we just so poor eating pain grow. It's not because we can't paper our walls with flat screen TVs, uh, or, or, you know, new forms of light bulbs and so on. It's rather things like healthcare, that's 18% of US GDP, right there, 18%. Education, both primary, secondary, and university level education, uh, then we move on to, um, housing and land use development, how we organize our communities, uh, then we move on to things like social services and so on. And how about finance? How do we organize finance? I think I'm up to 50% of GDP right there. In healthcare, I think we've had negative productivity over the past 30 years. Life expectancy in the United States last peaked in 2014, and mortality rates were last their lowest, about under 965 in 2010. And I mean, that's how bad healthcare. We keep spending more and more money, and people don't understand most of what influences your health. It's not how much we spend on doctors and hospitals, but I think somehow that, that, that medical industrial sector has convinced us that's true. So, you, you need to let a doctor, hospital, agree with his patient how to spend someone else's money, but namely the federal government, ensure his money, and we think that's a, that's a, that's a great system. And I think, are you kidding? Uh, but, but, but that's the system we're addicted to. Absolutely does not work. And for some reason, conservatives defend that it's free market or something. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. It's completely bankrupt. Uh, and Americans hate it. But if you want to ask most Americans, and ask any millennial in particular, why living standards are no longer growing, and why you are not reaching the living standard of your parents at the same age, it's not because they can't buy the next cell phone. It's because they can't afford, and I just got to lose, I just said they can't afford out here. They can't afford a university degree, and they can't afford to live anywhere. I think that just covered the same thing I just talked about, the industries. But notice they all involve, um, the material world, right? We, we have two different turning points in our, in our, uh, we talk about this year. We have a, and we have two solstices, right? One is the summer, the other is the winter. You know, the sun is longest, the sun is shortest. They, they, summer is the awakening, and then the awakening and the crisis is, obviously, the winter. Well, when are the great crises? Well, we've already been discussing them. These are when we remake our outer, you know, civic world of institutions, um, political institutions, economic institutions, kind of the things we actually build with material and, and kind of shape how we live in this world. And, and, and this would be the period we're living in now. The 1930s, World War II, be the Civil War, be the numeric revolution, and so on. There are similar, similar civic crises and periods of rebuilding way back in history. But in between these, we have the awakenings. And the awakenings are when we rebuild the inner world, right? This is one is we come up with new values, new culture, new religion, new perceptions, just new ways of, new vocabulary, new ways of speaking. Um, the last time we went in awakening in this pure was the late '60s and '70s. A prophet archetype like Bloomers comes of age during an awakening. I, a will, we got here archetype like the GI generation, like millennials, comes of age during a crisis. And one, one thing about the awakening is, is an intense debate, very destructive of, of outer world public creations. Right? Certainly the awakening was. I mean, suddenly everyone is into, you know, singing their inner world. You had Marilyn Ferguson talking about "Voyage to the Interior." Boomers declared the first Earth Day, and the first thing they did was take sledgehammers. This is a big publicized national event in 1972. They took sledgehammers to a car. They first of all, they, they declared it guilty in a courtroom, and they all took sledgehammers and they beat this car to pieces, and then they buried it. So that was that, that was the first Earth Day. And a couple years after that, we stopped the Apollo Moon launch program, right? No one wanted to go to the moon anymore, suddenly. But you see my point. No one wanted to do anything more with technology. We all want to discover. We all want to turn inward. Right? And, and I think the following period was one with the areas of birth, how don't mean that really expanded was all in feeding our creature comforts and things that appealed to us as individuals. What happens during the crisis is we, we become really hungry for things that appeal to us as communities and empower communities. And that's what, that's what millennials are interested in. I, I look at healthcare and living spaces, living areas, as just examples of that. But this is really what the crisis is all about. Is about ultimately, it's about getting us out of our solitude and our loneliness and rebuilding effective community lives. And, and that means, means that the following first turning is all about just continually building up community, the community world. Right? I'm up on this scale when I'm talking about economic sectors, is it gives you an idea what we're going to be doing in our economy, right? We're really going to be worried about things like housing, community, how do we build that? How do we build transportation that really works? What we really would love it to work, not just the way we just happen to inherit it. I mean, I'm living in the same stupid kind of internal combustion engine car that I grew up in as a kid. I see no progress at all. People are constantly talking about the world is changing so fast, my God, in history is speeding up. When you look at our material life, our institutional life, I see no change. I think it's a great time, if you're okay with it, Neil, to just open up to, uh, our peeps and just see if any of you want to just take the great opportunity having front to ask a question that we got an intimate group, so we can afford to be personal. Normally, we like to ask global questions. We've also got some different geographies on our call too. Not everyone here is, is necessarily North American. So if anybody wants to ask a question, if you go ahead and just, you know, wave your hand or whatever, um, I'll see you there. They go, they all go. I'm going to start with, I got to start with, he's the speaker now, we'll mark, so I got to start with David. So let's, hi buddy. Thank you, Scott. Thank you, uh, thank you, Neil. That was really, uh, really interesting. Thanks so much. And I saw you speak at the last year at the Lions event. So, um, I had a question. I'm sorry for, I missed and you might have said it, but, um, typically in a fourth turning, and the best judgment you can make and where we are, like, sort of, that's a hard question, I assume, but, you know, you might have some idea with your expertise. And then also, like, what signs would you look for? Like, right now, you know, uh, like stock market, you know, some stocks are going up a lot. And, uh, what signs would you look for with where things might change drastically in the next year or two? Like, how do you see, like, the next year or two in, in this cycle, I guess? I don't can say it in the United States. This is just the huge flash bomb coming up, which is, um, uh, November of 2024, right? In fact, then they got everyone in America sort of gradually their knuckles are getting white was thinking about it. Uh, uh, we've got, um, we've got two, we've got a, a politically leaderless nation, but unbelievably, we have no effort to find new leaders. But these two incumbents that no one really wants there, but they just feel faded, they have to go with because the political system is operating no choice there. Tremendous dissatisfaction about it. I, I do think that events could happen very rapidly in which neither of the, uh, the people that are currently talking about that, either either Joe Biden or Donald Trump will end up as the candidates in 2024. I think that can still change very rapidly due to the fact that there's just tremendous, you know, uh, there's absolutely no desire to have these two people running. Um, and I think that that speaks to the, the actual for for why widespread, you know, trauma breaking out. They, the underlying tensions have not gone away. And if anything is, is true, and we saw this during the recent debt limitation debate, there, there's a, there's a hardening on both sides. I mean, no one, no one talks to each other anymore. And what, what worries me is that at any point, uh, one side could just decide to, you know, spike the system or decide they won't cooperate. Um, and so, I, I'm worried about both. This is something I talked about a lot in the book, is, is do we have to worry most about civic conflict or civic discord, our, our system breaking down because the two sides won't cooperate? Or do we have to worry about geopolitical events? And, um, I remain undivided. I remain undecided because I'd hear, uh, you know, arguments on both sides that can happen. I think things are speeding up in Southeast Asia. There's no question about it. Uh, everyone I talk to, uh, I'm here in Washington, so I speak to these guys a lot, but there's no question of the national security people, national security officials, everyone went in sort of speeding up the clock and what's likely to happen on Taiwan, which I think is where everyone's focused right now. Um, and, and partly because the, the long-term feature is now kind of closing down for China. I think when things were much more positive longer term, uh, China wanted to wait. I mean, why do anything when history is on your back, right? I mean, the winds are your back and you can just wait. I don't think there's a feeling they can afford to wait any longer, particularly now the United States is beginning to fortify the second island chain, as being to take steps designed to to weaken China's economic growth. So I think both things worry me a lot. There is no specific timetable, however, I can say, and something I talk about in the book in terms of years, I mean, you're asking for sort of a timetable. Oh, they, what we see and look, looking at the clock, uh, and looking at current phases of life, which are beginning to lengthen somewhat, as we see the likelihood of a climax is going to be at the very end of the 2020s. I mean, if you were to ask me, when is it, uh, and the, the conclusion, the resolution of the crisis being in the early 2030s. We are our best guess is year is 2033, but that's just simply, you know, simply in a bell curve, that's kind of the one that we think is likely as a possibility by running the numbers. But I think it's, it's unlikely to peak, you know, uh, you know, before 2026. That would be, that would be, that would be so unusual, that would be almost, um, an, you know, and it, but it, but it would be also very unlikely to to peak and resolve, you know, after, you know, 2036. And I realize it's a long period of time, you can't, you can't say you're watched by that. But I, but I think it's, it's specific enough to kind of show you how you should plan your life, you know, what I mean? Um, thank you. Thank you, David. Um, Michelle, let's, uh, jump in and say hi. Hi, Neil. Hi, Michelle. First thing I want to say, as a non-English first language speaker, thank you for this book. I ran the first, and it was so hard. I bought the audiobook, and I had to read to kind of listen more than once. It was dense, and the language on this book is so crazy flows, you know, and, and it's really fun to read. Like, I'm getting fascinated by American history because of your book. So I just wanted to share that with you because I think the world will feel like that as well. Now, great. Thank you. As far as a question, uh, what was the biggest concept or pattern shift from the first book to this one? Something you believed then, and you don't believe anymore? That you have seen a shift? Is there anything, um, that's, you know, that's a really interesting. You know, I would say it's more the, it's, it's, it's a much greater sense of resolution is kind of how I would put it. And, and when we wrote the book in 1997, again, that was almost science fiction. That was like, where out in the world, we didn't even know what was going to be happening in America. That, I mean, this is before, this was before Obama, and before, uh, uh, certainly before, well, actually, we did know Donald Trump back then. He was already in the news. Uh, but, but my point is, is that no one believed, you know, if you would ask back there with Donald Trump as president, we would have just thought, what, you've got to be kidding, right? Um, but, but so, in some sense, that shows you how little we knew, you know, how, how little we knew, how ignorant we were. So, what the difference is, in back then, it was a very impressionistic picture. We just saw almost archetypal pieces, but we didn't know what would actually play which role. That, I mean, if we talked about the pattern of, of geopolitical conflict back then, we had no idea what the geopolitical conflict would be. Well, now we know. I mean, now we know there's actual axes of powers out there. We identify them, we discuss them in the book, right? Uh, we didn't know, Red Zone and Blue Zone, they weren't terms in America in 1997. I think that was almost to be invented a few years later during the, um, during the, the Gore-Bush election in 2000, when suddenly we, we saw they on CNN for the first time, is that some states would be red, other states would be blue, and then we started talking about Red Zone, Blue Zone. But I think that's the big difference. It's, it's the sense of a, a very fuzzy, indistinct picture, which is only archetypal, almost like in a dream. Now they fill in. We now see it in much more detail. And I think that's why in this current book, we talk in much more detail about class crises. And that's why, by the way, we have so much in there about American history, you know, as we go through those earlier crises. Actually, actually started narrating them, uh, last year. I think, I think it was last year when we went to Tony's house, that you spoke. Tony gave us a big book and he said, okay, now you guys go along with this big, big book, see where you fit in, which generation are you, where are we in the world, where are we in cycles of history, which generations you're hiring in your businesses, and everything that is happening, and map that out. And so I came home, read the book, listened to it like three or four times, and mapped everything out. And as I'm hiring now, I'm thinking of desk assessments, I'm thinking of cycles of history, I'm thinking of the diversity of my employees, by 76 people, which generations they are, so I understand how they're thinking. And now I have another piece that I have to put in there because I work with international people. So my second question to you is, how does diversity and migration, for example, if we consider only the US and US history on cycles of history and cycles of generation, and how they kind of interlace and we can kind of predict some of those things? What role population shift would make, like immigration, in terms of this? Yeah, it, you know, it varies. I think, I think there is a pattern of, of fertility rises and falls. There's also a pattern of migration. Generally, we have rising immigration after awakenings in our history because typically awakenings weaken public institutions that protect, but we just basically let the borders open, let people come in, and not just for cultural reasons, but also for business reasons, right? Remember, we, because, and I can't help but remind people when I think about the awakening in the 1970s, it, it started out as a cultural revolution against, you know, the patriarchy and, you know, the, you know, the family and, and, and, and square culture and convention and all that. And, you know, I could wear my hair long, and I could strip, I wouldn't have to wear the suit and, you know, all the. But it was also an economic revolution, right? Against taxes, regulation, immigration restrictions. And there was a huge economic reason for wanting immigrants. I mean, if you run a business, that could be great, you know, have a lot of low-wage people. And, and we forget that one of the reasons why this ebbs and flows is that then you have the phases of the unraveling, which, which most recently was, was, you know, the late '80s, '90s, the '00s, which is a period of huge immigration in our country. Very large. We're up around, you know, seven or eight, uh, immigrants per thousand people every day. And that's, that's a, that's a large net immigration stream. Uh, but that's like earlier, uh, uh, third turning. That's like the turn of the century, around the 1890s, you know, around there, or the 1900s. Uh, these are the peak of migration in America. So what happens during a crisis? Typically, sometime during the crisis, immigration falls. And that's because America becomes less desirable as a location, and also because we become much more protective about the people that are here. Now, some of that's due to unions. I mean, unions, it's funny because today, the Democratic party, you know, supports, you know, open borders and, you know, let's bring everyone, let's give everyone the privilege of coming in America and so on. But historically, unions are always been anti-immigration. That's true all of American history until very recently, when that, that stopped. But, but unions draw in immigration because it invited in people who undercut wages, right? And in, uh, in the 1920s, uh, uh, in the early 1920s, we shut the immigration window, suddenly. And then suddenly, when the G.I. generation grew up in a very low immigrant country, you know, when they came of age. But as a result, wages started rising, and one of the reasons why equality arose again, inequality declined during the 1930s and '40s and '50s. Those are very low immigration decades. And by the way, uh, the 1920s, and then again during World War II, these are the decades when African-Americans came up from the South, and their wages improved tremendously. They couldn't come up from the South during high immigration from Europe because all these jobs were being taken by unskilled laborers from from Eastern Europe and from other places around the world, right? So, in other words, this, this created opportunities within America. I think more importantly, though, there, I think America will always be a high immigration country. Let me just say that. America has by far the best, biggest destination for immigrants of any country in the world in absolute numbers, and our immigration rate is very high. Uh, Scott, not quite so high as Australia. Australia is very high, along with very high. Yeah, very interesting that these Anglo nations are huge immigrant countries, and they believe in immigration, and they are the highest immigrant countries in the world, right? Uh, Europe, much less so. East Asia, almost no immigrants. You know, and, and those who do come in are guest workers, they never become citizens. And so, and so I'm very proud of America's tradition as being an immigrant country, but I do think that it ebbs and flows according to the cycle. And what's really important is in the first turning after the crisis, the idea of diversity changes. Right? During the first turning, you're expected to be a team player. It doesn't matter when you were born here, that everyone's expected to be part of a melting pot, right? And that is when the melting pot idea of immigration becomes very popular. So if you're thinking at, but in your case, of people are having infants in the rest of the world, you can tell them that they can look forever to join America, in which everyone's expected to join, you know, they'll all be on the same team. Thank you, Michelle. Hey, we got time for a few more. Hope, um, Casey, you had your hand up patiently for a long time, man. Thanks. I appreciate it. Neil, this is kind of a a two-fold question. So I'm curious, you know, the origin of the word "seculum," I believe you said originates, you know, hundreds of years ago, if not millennia. And at that time, the average life expectancy for most humans was, correct me if I'm wrong, around maybe high 40s, low 50s, is that correct? Well, it's, we actually discuss that in the book. Um, I can tell you where to go. They, the average life expectancy was lower, but it was mainly because of high infant mortality and child mortality and early mortality and something throughout your life. But as I point out, anyone who reaches, you know, age 20 or 25, even at high mortality, pre-modern societies, most of those people will still be alive, uh, by their mid-ages. That is to say, a majority will still be alive. So the difference is, is that the average mortality was less because there's a lot of more mortality early in life, which today we've almost completely eliminated. The point is, is once you reach a certain age, like your, you know, mid-20s, uh, a very large, in fact, over 50% I had to remain all the way into old age, right? And what I point out in the book is that when it comes to elderhood as a phase of life, it doesn't matter how many people still live, all that matters is that someone builds it. And in fact, you look at traditional societies, what is the role of of elders, right? I mean, their role, I mean, we go through actually, you know, what your phases of life roles are, you know, what, you know, young adult learning values and practices, uh, uh, when when your child, and then as a young adult, it's, it's, it's, you know, actually followed through those teachings and actually getting done for society. And then in midlife, it's, it's, it's, you know, its leadership, you know, organizing people, founding families, and so on, and organizing kind of guiding society. And, and among elders, it's, uh, providing authority and providing a sense of direction. Ty, can I ask what's your interest in the world? Sorry to jump in there. There's a whole big chunk in the book that talks about that word. True. It's not, it's not Neil's word. It's been around. I actually, thank you for this book, Neil. I actually read the book, the whole book. And right before that, I read Peter Zeihan's book about "The End of the World Is Just the Beginning." So it was very, have your book come with this opportunity. My question is, a "seculum" has always meant the life cycle of a human. With the advances of biosciences, longevity technology, if we are living to 100 to 120 to 150 years, will a "seculum" always be indicative of four generations, or will there be a fifth generation, so to speak? Question. Yes, uh, I'm sorry. I do raise on the new book. I talk about late elder, that's an emerging phase of life. Um, and, uh, and the fact that we have, you know, at the end of 2020, the end of year 2020, for the first time, obviously, the first time in history, not only America, I think any, any nation, we had octogenarians at the head of the Senate, the House, and the White House, right, at the same time. We had Biden, Pelosi, and Mitch McConnell. They were all 80 or 81 years old. I mean, just absolutely extraordinary, right? I mean, you think about that whenever we're thinking like that. Um, so what's actually causing though the, the dilation of life phases, meaning the phase of life will be slightly longer, what that means is the generations would be slightly longer, and it means actually the, the "seculum" will actually expand somewhat. And as I explained in the book, and Scott, you remember, there's a discussion in the book. I talk about how in, in pre-modern, the pre-modern world, even though life expectancy was shorter, uh, childhood is longer. In other words, it took longer for young adults actually to become independent. You know, back in the, the late 17th and most of the 18th century, particularly in the old world in Europe, uh, you, you weren't independent in your early 20s. It was much more like millennials today. You couldn't really get out and found a new house until maybe you're late 20s. And there was no premarital pregnancy back then. We know that from church records. I'm almost, you know, you had to get married to set up a new household, and that was usually in your late 20s. We found back then, but the generations were longer, and the, the entire "seculum" was longer back then. It gradually got shorter moving into the 21st century. Now we think it's getting longer again. But it's not primarily determined by life expectancy. Uh, it's interesting. Throughout most of the 20th century, life expectancy has got much longer due to reduced, um, childhood diseases, or, you know, young adult diseases. Um, but as I said, recently, life expectancy is actually getting shorter. I don't know that if you remember my rant about the healthcare in this country, but, but younger, younger generations, they're not in great health, like, quite obesity, diabetes, stress, hypertension, that stuff is not in control of today's younger generations. And, and, and if, if this stuff is not controlled as they grow older, and this stuff is going to get worse as they grow older. Um, I don't know. I'm just laying down my, laying down a cautionary note there. I appreciate that. And may I ask one more quick question? Have you ever, regarding the all the information that you have and looking at historical facts, have you ever run somewhat of like a regression analysis to be able to see if you could predict the outcome of an election? Because if you, you understand generations so well, I'm curious. Data and gone back. The problem is, it's a different kind of event. It's a little like predicting the stock market. It's a very particular event that could go one way or the other. Um, I think what, what I can do is predict what, and a lot of people can do that. Other words, they crunch all the data. By the way, I have someone on my team who does, um, you know, neural network machine learning, and, and we actually, we actually try to do multi-day regressions on stock market data. So, I'm involved in that. But that's completely different. What I do here is I think thematically, uh, uh, using the past as my guide to think about thematically about much longer term periods. And nobody else does that. And I feel my comparative advantage is looking at at, um, at teachers that no one else has any idea about. A lot of people can predict the next election, you know, crudely, a lot of data. That's not my comparative advantage. Understood. Well, thank you so much. Your book was amazing. And one of my favorite quotes from Bolter says, "History doesn't repeat itself, but man does." And right along those lines. So thank you so much. I appreciate it. You're welcome. Thank you, Casey. Hey, Jeffrey, you've been waiting patiently, my friend. You're on. All right. Great, great to see everybody. Neil, thank you for being here and taking time. Again, yeah, you're welcome. You know, the, the validation of the second book over your first book is just incredible, and the update of statistics and, and, you know, people's perception. I mean, one that's struck me was was the fact, I think it was what, 69% of, of people feel like we're headed towards a civil war or something. I'm not sure the percentage. It's a big number, right? So, you know, given that, where, where are you taking your family? Where, where's that haven on the planet that we can go for opportunities, for lifestyle, and opportunities and economics, and then helping, but yet taking care and preparing for our family? Where on the planet is that? Well, you have your bug-out bag with you, you know? Are you stuffing things into it right now? You know, just stuffing things into your bug-out bag. Look, um, I'll be honest with you, and just don't get alarmed, but I've actually moved, uh, with, with my family. U, I live now in Great Falls, Virginia, which, do you know, who knows, right outside DC. I'm sort of part of that big, you know, DC area. Uh, but we're moving to West Virginia, a large, large property at the top of the mountain, you know, with its own orchard on it and so on. And now, we're not, we're not, I'm not going survival mode here, so don't get me wrong. It's something like that in since, and I'm, I'm not really an extrovert. I really don't like living in a community like this. I, I love solitude. I get my, I get my best ideas, uh, when I'm sort of alone. I can meditate, I can look fast. Since I grew up in California, and I grew up in the wilderness, and I really missed that. I like that. Um, that's personally. I, I think that's more of a personal style. I'm a well-functioning introvert, you know, I get along great with people, right? They, at me wrong, I gotta get along great with books, but that's not where I charge my energy, right? And I think that's the sign. I think introverts need a little solitude to recharge. I think extroverts, to recharge, they just got to get with people, you know, what I mean? That, that's, that's how I, I look at myself in terms of the Big Five personality traits. Um, but I do think that, that in terms of of the most important thing, you know, we've talked about, we've talked about portfolios, we've talked about a lot of that. Here's, here's one piece of advice I would give, uh, because I, I talked a lot to millennials about this, you know, because they often asked me, well, where should I invest? And I said, well, you know, I can give you investment options if you want. I can tell you, you know, don't, don't get into, uh, nominally denominated assets, that don't, those don't work well in an inflationary environment. Uh, so don't, you know, unless you're, unless you're into TIPS, but don't get into, you know, treasury bonds and all that kind of stuff. Uh, I can give you all that kind of advice. But I think one piece of advice I would give, and I give this particularly to young people, is your best investment for the future down the road, particularly in a, in a turning situation, is to bond with your family, particularly your extended family. You know, we have no workable, uh, uh, long-term care insurance in this country. And the whole idea, so, right, with moral hazard and inability to negotiate a fair price, it's never going to work. You know, your, your long-term health, your long-term care insurance is your family. And let's face it, it's true for everyone. Bond with some long-term friends and with family members. If you have trouble with your family members, find a way to overcome that, because in the long run, that's going to be worth far better than extra money in your portfolio. And I, I say this very seriously, and in terms of your relationships with the people that are close to you, because in the fourth turning, we don't know what kind of social security or Medicare, we don't know what Medicaid is going to be like. There may be other agendas that may be subbing much more for this country to be spending money on, right? And your personal well-being just may not be the top of anyone's priority. But what will save you in a situation like that is having your own close community, right? Your own family connections. And this is something I think much more important in a fourth turning than necessarily in an awakening, you know, and getting rid of the patriarchy, and we all want to live alone, we want to go solo, right? Well, that may be a good time to do that. This is not a time. Uh, Jeff, thanks for the question. And you could be so gracious. Patricia's been waiting so patiently. We got one final question, then we really are done. Patricia, you're on. Um, I agree with the healing emotionally. Us, it helps our kids, everyone. And I, I totally agree with you in a situation of crisis, we want them to to be connected and in that, in that, you know, community. If you were to give a recipe to build a community, not only your family and your friends, but I'm talking about an industry, um, if you want to create an industry community to have that bond going, what are the recipes? What are the things that I would need to take into consideration to build that community? Well, you know, the first thing is, um, you know, don't break any, any trust laws, I guess. My second piece of advice is, um, to get them to be able to communicate. And I think that is a really good question. I would remind them all, what would you all do if the demand for, for whatever we produce, suddenly went down by 50%? What do we all do? Uh, where, where is your safety net? Where is our safety net? And if we produce something which has some public benefit, do we make it case? You know, one thing I talk about is in fourth turning, representation in our political system becomes more important. A lot of Gen Xers, Scott, and this is a kind of a generational thing, but a lot of Gen Xers came of age thinking, I don't want any regulation, I want nothing to do with government. When it comes to government, I just want to stay out, play radar screen, and I'm just going to do my thing, totally competitive environment. But in a fourth turning, those are the people who get crushed. And I think very often in the fourth turning, people begin to refine communities, even businesses and communities, and they find a way to say, look, let's be fair here. Everyone is going through huge privations. Everyone is suffering in this current crisis. We may have to save money to spend on something else. Nonetheless, what we offer as an industry is valuable, and government or the public should take an interest in it and protect it. It becomes more important to have a presence in our political system because those decisions will become much more powerful and much more consequential than they ever were whenever, you know, whenever happened back in the 1990s or the 2000s. But in the world in crisis, um, the public sector is going to be making or breaking the fates of industries and companies, and you really want your voice heard. And I would, I would organize your community by getting them to think about this, getting to think about their future, and get them to think about what do we do in worst-case scenarios? Are we, do we make our case as an industry? Are did, do the communities in which we already were know about us, and do they care about what we do, and do they care about what happens to us? Yeah, that's be my advice. Thank you. Thank you. That's helpful. You're welcome. You're welcome. Thank you, Patricia. Hi, um, we've, uh, reached our time. We want to be respectful, Neil, of, uh, your time. Um, just thank you. You know, I know Tony so respects and reveres what you teach and what you do, and he's been so grateful for your teachings in the last 30 years in his life. As a participant of Tony and, you know, someone who's on his team, we're ever so grateful. I know the Lions are so grateful to have you, um, come to Tony's house last year and be here again with us today. Uh, we wish you great success with the book, and hope that it's, uh, a huge, phenomenal world success, as it should be and deserves to be, uh, as Michelle said, thank you for writing it. It was so beautiful to read. Just ever so grateful, and, um, and we wish you phenomenal success with it. Ladies and gentlemen, can you please give Neil a big, beautiful thank you. Scott, thank you. Scott, it was a pleasure. Um, I, I enjoyed looking out when I was in Tony's place, looking out on the Atlantic Ocean, all, and then here we all out together again. I, I feel like here's another team that I'm a member of. So, um, you know, but we'll have you back anytime you want. Anytime you want to come play with us or hang out with us, I'm sure the team are always excited to do that. I see big smiles on all their faces. So again, uh, we thank you, uh, we appreciate you, and respect you, and, uh, we're, we're grateful for any time we get to spend. So thank you once again. Ladies and gentlemen, give it up. You make some noise. All right. And, and, and thank you. Thank you, my friend. Really great. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Thank you, guys, for having me. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]