THE 20th CENTURY IN RETROSPECT. (AND IN LESS THAN 600 WORDS.)

This is the time of the year when commentators and media outlets release their obligatory “Year in Review” articles. The Author has already published his. So let’s expand our view. Let’s do a century.

Years, decades, centuries, are rarely coterminous with the events that mark them. The Gay 90’s didn’t begin in 1890 and end in 1900. The Roaring Twenties quit roaring before 1930 when the stock market crashed in 1929. And the 1960s? Judging by all of the retired hippies in Santa Fe and Sedona, the 1960s may not end until the last hippies ride their Harley-Davidson wheelchairs into the sunset.

Many historians say that the 19th century “ended” in 1918 when World War I concluded. This is based upon the fact that World War I was the final clash of the empires that dominated the 19th century. Two empires, the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, were destroyed. Another empire, the Russian Empire, was defeated and transformed into the Communist Soviet Union (an empire that would take center stage in the 20th century).

The British Empire was staggered and weakened. It struggled through the rest of the 20th century but would never return to the “glory” it held in the 19th century.

The United States came to prominence after World War I and emerged as the dominant economic and industrial power.

So in effect, one world order from the 19th century was replaced by another in the wake of World War I.

SO WHEN DID THE 20TH CENTURY END?

The Author believes that the 20th Century ended in 1989 with the bloodless collapse of the Soviet Union and the East-Bloc Communist states. Before World War II, American and European financial and industrial interests operated in mortal fear of communism and socialism taking root in their economies. The world-wide Depression helped the Nazis come to power in war-and-reparations ravaged Germany. American leaders feared that the economic dislocation of the Great Depression would trigger socialist uprisings. Others feared that the disruption of the Great Depression would trigger a right-wing fascist coup in the US.

WORLD WAR II RESHUFFLED THE DECK.

Only the United States and the Soviet Union were left standing after World War II. Post-war hopes for world stability were dimmed by the Soviet takeover of Eastern Europe. Then came 40-some years of the “Cold War”, which turned “warm” in Korea and Vietnam, and flashed “Red” over Soviet missiles in Cuba. And looming always was the threat of thermo-nuclear annihilation.

The fall of communism, organic, nearly bloodless, was a welcome event in human history. In the end, governments that lacked popular support fell through populist actions. With a whimper, not a bang.

SO, WHAT TO MAKE OF THE NEW 21ST CENTURY?

By the Author’s reckoning, we are almost 20 years into the 21st century (1989-today). A lot has happened. A terrorist strike on the Twin Towers in New York City has unleashed an expansionist, Christianist and authoritarian regime in Washington. These fetid impulses, never far from the surface of the body politic, have finally oozed out of their secretive mire.

We can see them for what they are-- petty tyrants (as are all tyrants) with the military and police power to act on their whims, greed, ambition, paranoia and insecurities. We can hear them derided and decried from the capitals of the world as bullies and thugs. But can we stop them?

WE THINK FREE, THEREFORE WE LIVE FREE, IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!

CHRISTMAS IS OVER. THE LONG SEASON IS NOT.

The gift-giving and the economic bacchanalia are over. We must now wait for the retail economists and spokespeople for the retail industry to tell us what happened.

But not owning retail stocks, the Author is not overly concerned. His “goose”, such that it is, will neither get gouged nor lay golden eggs. He is neither long nor short geese this season.

The Author has been somewhat dour this Holiday Season. Personal circumstance has had some effect. But looking at the US economy, it is difficult to be sanguine. The reasons are legion. Erratic GDP growth, wage stagnation, liquidity problems, the sub-prime collapse. INFLATION. Income and wealth disparities are as distended as any time since the 1920s.Odds of a recession are moving closer to 50%.

THE ONLY THING CONSTANT IS YOUR INABILITY TO AVOID CHANGE.

The Author frequently describes the current economy as the YOYOMF economy. Less loutish and vulgar economists sometime describe this as the YOYO economy.

The drivers of the 1990s, the stock market, especially the tech sector, now lie as shredded brokerage statements on the rotting heap of composting paper. Housing prices have imploded and fallen through to the basement. Wage growth is stagnant. And then inflation takes your paycheck cliff diving.

The Author has never seen his career, nor his fortunes, in terms of linear growth. Slow and steady rarely wins the race. That is because slow and steady does not reflect the financial world nor the world of human affairs.

The world moves in jerks and jaunts. Economies race forward and then retreat for awhile. Businesses, products, markets, come and go. Schumpterian “Creative Destruction” [cite post] assures that what is here today is usually gone tomorrow. The next day may be far better or just a little worse. But never the same.

WHAT THEN, IS TO BE DONE?

The Author sees life as a series of mostly lateral disruptions, occasional setbacks, and quantum leaps. Let’s look at each:

1. Lateral disruptions. These are the changes that come frequently but do not have long-term, or irreversible effect. Your company closes, you get laid off. You have an unplanned child or miss a week of work with the flu. You wreck your car. A tree falls on your roof. Your dog runs off with the neighbor’s Schnauzer.

These are events you insure against. Events that you save for. Events that are, as a general rule, part of life. They can result in positive change, as a layoff may trigger a search that results in a better job. They can be worse, if the new job pays less or is a less-desirable workplace. But most results are awash. And it is how we handle these lateral disruptions that has the most effect upon the courses of our lives. They happen most frequently and they can be most easily mitigated, aggravated, or seized upon.

2. Occasional Setbacks. These are the big ones. Serious illness. Death of a spouse or close loved one. Forced relocation. Business failure because of exogenous factors.

Most people face these only a handful of times. The more of these you face, the generally worse things will turn out for you. Human beings are resilient, but there is only so much stretch or give in the average human spirit. We praise the most resilient, we pity the least. Most of us are somewhere in the middling mass.

Keep your head down and your powder dry. Or beg for luck. Or better still, do both.

3. Quantum Leaps. These rarely happen by accident. But they move us personally or financially forward. They are usually triggered by circumstances that mimic their metaphoric name. A person takes action, injects energy into their life or circumstance. They go to college, learn a skill, save some money to start a business. The energy input builds and finally they make a quantum leap, a move to a higher level.

Certainly, there are people that just happen to be in the right place at the right time to take advantage of those rare splashes of serendipity. But if one looks at those people that appear to have been in the “right place at the right time”, it is often because they have spent much time and energy figuring out where exactly is the “right place at the right time”, and, knowing how to recognize it.

But of course, sometimes people just get lucky.

WELL SO MANY HOMILIES FROM ONE HOMO SAPIEN SAPIEN.

It is sometimes difficult to avoid the temptation to pontificate. By implication, a blogger believes that what she or he has to say is important and relevant to others. A suspect proposition.

The Author has never considered himself wise. There is likely some amount of wisdom in everyone. One’s ability to recognize “wisdom” and pay heed to it is probably the definition of “wisdom” itself, as few people are probably born with it.

LOOK, LISTEN, AND DISCERN IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!