The Storm Before the Calm: America's discord, the coming crisis of the 2020s, and the triumph beyond

new president who does not create the new cycle but rather permits it to take place.

it will not be possible for the federal government to retreat from its deep involvement with society.

For most of the 2020s, the driving economic force will be low growth in productivity, decreased opportunities for investment of accumulated capital, and low interest rates. It will also be a period of increasing unemployment, driven by continued decline in industry and stagnation in high tech as the result of the maturation of the core technology.

technocrats, who will continue to assert that their expertise, credentials, and merit make them the morally legitimate power in the United States.

constant entanglement under the guise of management cannot be sustained.

of the federal government will be questioned.

First, the governing class, and the technocrats, accumulate power and wealth, and they begin to shape the institutions to protect their interests.

The 2016 election signaled that the political system had sensed the underlying tension, just as happened in the 1968 elections. The political conflict of 1968 would not be closed until 1980. So too the political tensions of 2016 won’t be closed until 2028. First recall that there has always been a politician from the declining class who holds the f

For example, there were federal agencies designed to facilitate mortgage lending. There were federal agencies responsible for supervising markets. There were federal agencies responsible for monitoring fraud.

and those technocrats who must be disrupted in order to rebuild an efficient government and public life.