America’s 10 worst years start right now Commentary: 2011-2020: Rich get richer, market crashes, empire ends…

By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch

2015. Gilded Age globalization implodes America’s Global Empire

Around the time of the Pentagon’s WWIII prediction, historian Kevin Phillips warned in “Wealth & Democracy:’ “Most great nations, at the peak of their economic power, become arrogant and wage great world wars at great cost, wasting vast resources, taking on huge debt, and ultimately burning themselves out.”

Similarly, financial historian Niall Ferguson, author of “Colossus: The Rise and Fall of The American Empire,” warned that we deceive ourselves, thinking “about the political process in seasonal, cyclical terms.” By 2015 most agreed America has was past its peak.

2016. Wall Street capitalism self-destructs, crashes, mass bankruptcies

“But what if history is not cyclical and slow-moving but arrhythmic, asks Ferguson. “What if collapse does not arrive over a number of centuries but comes suddenly,” too rapid to respond in time. Unfortunately, in our blind greed we refuse to hear “Irrational Exuberance” author Robert Shiller’s warning that “we recently lived through two epidemics of excessive financial optimism … are close to a third episode … another meltdown … another depression.”

Once again, our leaders ignored history. Ignored Jared Diamond’s earlier warning in “Collapse:” “One of the disturbing facts of history is that so many civilizations share a sharp curve of decline. Indeed, a society’s demise may begin only a decade or two after it reaches its peak population, wealth and power.” The 2016 elections changed nothing.

2017. Middle-class revolution: Buffett’s rich class loses, overthrown

The seeds were planted years ago. Warren Buffett saw the revolution coming: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

By 2017 it had exploded into a new Civil War as all hell broke loose after the 2016 presidential election. The growing income gap popped Wall Street’s bubble for the third time in the 21st century, the economy collapsed, riots spread against another bailout of too-greedy-to-fail Wall Street banks. A class rebellion ignited.

2018. Reaganomics capitalism collapses, Glass-Steagall reinstated

Diamond says he’s a “cautious optimist,” our leaders need “the courage to practice long-term thinking, and make bold, courageous, anticipatory decisions at a time when problems have become perceptible but before they reach crisis proportions.” Deaf, they still fail to act.

The “Crisis of 2018” triggered a cultural revolution, a jarring wake-up call. History warns that most leaders are driven by short-term self-interest not long-term public interests, especially politicians bankrolled by billionaires who can’t see past quarterly earnings, year-end bonuses, the next election. This catastrophe may have finally woken us up.

2019. WWIII commodity wars spread, cost trillions, kill hundreds of millions

Over $30 trillion in federal, state and local debt, plus spending half our budget on the Pentagon’s war machine, finally overwhelmed America’s fiscal policy and the world’s bond markets in 2019.

Unfortunately, the growing number of commodity wars ignited by an accelerating global population and decline in the world’s scarce resources also forced a total rethinking of the balance between spending to contain external threats and a rapid deterioration of social-program needs: employment, retirement, education, health care.

2020. Patriarchy ends: male dominance declines, women leaders rise

Back in 2011 it seemed clear that patriarchy, male dominance world culture, politics and economics throughout history, would collapse all by itself, without women engaging in any direct war, any “battle of the sexes” to defeat men at their own game. But in 2020, women may be our only salvation.

Dr. Jean Bolen, author of “The Millionth Circle” and a leader in organizing the United Nation’s 2015 Conference on Women, challenged women to confront males and put an “end to patriarchy,” because only women can “save the world.” Others like Gloria Feldt, author of “No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power,” are preparing a new generation of leaders.

Four decades ago my law school class had five women, today across America, women are a majority in most professional schools. Soon they will be called upon.

Why are male leaders failing America in government, business and finance? Jeremy Grantham’s firm GMO manages $96 billion. He predicted the meltdown, said it best in early 2008: American’s leaders are all “impatient … management types who focus on what they are doing this quarter or this annual budget.”

Real leadership “requires more people with a historical perspective who are more thoughtful and more right-brained … but we end up with an army of left-brained immediate doers. So it’s more or less guaranteed that every time we get an outlying, obscure event that has never happened before in history, they are always to miss it,” as in 2000, 2008 and again this decade.

Could we change the future?

In post-capitalism, post-patriarchy America, women will emerge from the ashes of “The Worst Decade in American History: 2011-2020.” Women leaders will emerge not just because the males’ short-term brains are sabotaging America’s long-term needs, but because the female brain has naturally evolved for long-term thinking.

Brain research tells us that 75% of men are left-brain short-term thinkers. Conversely, 75% of women tend to have strong right-brain traits: forward-thinkers, more awareness of the future, the big picture, with a strong sense of long-term benefits and consequences, peacemakers.

In future columns we’ll dig more into the role of women as the new leaders in a post-capitalism, post-patriarchy America. But for now, take these 10 predictions seriously, invest wisely, defensively, and don’t be misled by Wall Street’s happy talk

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/americas-10-worst-years-start-right-now-2011-01-04?pagenumber=2

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