Thoughts on Coming Apart and the Coming Great Reset
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer
Kit Webster
Themes and Theses
Why I'm Contemplating Out Loud
(Initially formulated in the early 90s, following decades of reading history, philosophy, religion, psychology and a lot of contemplation, particularly on the subject of cycles. In the end, this is a relatively straightforward story about human nature and of history rhyming.)
The US will enter a period of crisis in the early 2000s. In the late 90s, I incorporated Strauss' and Howe's terminology of the Fourth Turning (without incorporating their generations paradigm) and agreed with Howe that the end stage of the crisis began with the Great Financial Crisis and would last into the early 2030s. We are now at the beginning of the end stage of the crisis.
The crisis will be serious and could be existential.
Internal strife will increase, up to and including secession and civil war.
International conflicts will increase as the vacuum created by the weakening of the US is filled by other players.
There will be many threads to the crisis, but the primary thread will be debt, deficits and entitlements. Other factors include, eg, demographics, a loss of meaning and myth and a loss of self-discipline.
Politics will move leftward as citizens look for some refuge from the chaos. The US will become increasingly susceptible to a (man) on a white horse, who can come from either the left or the right.
Inflation, as the most likely way to address debt since austerity is not politically acceptable, will significantly lower standards of living, exacerbating the civil crises.
Eventually, the dollar will be inflated away and lose its reserve status.
Once the old rot is cleared out, and assuming continuity, there will be the basis for the establishment of a new order.
There will be what Strauss and Howe calls a First Turning . It will be constructed out of the physical infrastructure, wealth, energy sources, thoughts and values in the culture at the time. At this point in time, those components are unknowable. We can anticipate that the next future will be increasingly chaotic. We can anticipate that there will be destruction, and then reconstruction from some level. We cannot yet anticipate the form of the reconstruction or the level from which it will begin.
(Added in the early 00s) While humans are contributing to global warming, policies implemented to address manmade global warming will create a significant energy crisis, probably toward the end of the Fourth Turning.
(Added around 2020) The loss of faith by our youth in our founding principles means that the new order will at least partially be based on new principles. As yet, I have no visibility as to what those principles might be.
(Added in 2023) The lowering / elimination of standards in education, the judiciary, law enforcement, the military and other segments of our society will create a population unable to adequately comprehend, do or respond to the challenges of democracy and culture.
(Added in 2025) China has won - at least for the next 5-10 years. The US is dependent on China for the materials it uses to create defense items. We literally cannot fight China without China's help. China's industrial base is impressive; the US has to rebuild. China is out-innovating the US. China is turning out more engineers and scientists than the US by far. This does not mean that China does not face challenges - demographics perhaps being its primary challenge. The US military remains stronger than China's, but in an age of drone warfare, that statement means less than it has historically. The US still has bargaining chips and will need to use them to maintain any kind of status quo.
(Added in 2025) AI has the potential to profoundly affect human culture. However, AI faces several significant hurdles, including the demand for massive amounts of electricity, which may not be available, and a cultural revolt against its existence. Since it could be existential, and since China is pursuing it, the US has no alternative, at least in the short term.
(Added in 2026) Maneuvering for control of critical materials will be a primary driver of geopolitics for at least the next decade.
Medicare Must Die
August 14, 2026
Quotes to Contemplate
Policymakers see equity market is "too big to fail"...economy dependent on wealth effect and AI data-center capex boom. - Michael Hartnett
Iran and US are settling into a kinetic equilibrium... But the kinetic equilibrium that has been in place in Ukraine since late 2023 is now definitively breaking up, mainly because Ukraine can now impose pain on Russia. - Marko Papic
There is a new common knowledge. Everybody knows that everybody knows that the way you make a killing is to bet that grifters are gonna’ grift, and nobody’s going to lift a finger to stop them. - Rusty Guinn
When I die and I stand before God and go through everything I did in my life, I don’t want to say I did it the easy way instead of the Shariah-compliant way. Not because of fear but because of obligation. - Abdul El-Sayed
There is but a very small remnant of honest followers of wisdom, and they who are of these few, and who have tasted how sweet and blessed a possession is wisdom, and who can fully see, moreover, the madness of the multitude, and that there is no one, we may say, whose action in public matters is sound, and no ally for whosoever would help the just. - Plato
Summary of Primary Thoughts To Contemplate In This Issue
Iran warns it is preparing for military operations on US soil following a “new military doctrine tasking IRGC to attack enemy in its soil,” adding Iran will “take operations into enemy territory, into the enemy’s lands, and carry out operations far from our own territory,” IRGC senior advisor General Mohammad Reza Naqdi says. “Whenever the conditions are favorable and the order is issued, we must be able to take the operation into enemy territory,” Naqdi adds.
Speculation is growing that Russia will make a limited strike against a NATO member in the next few months, given the weakened position of the US and all NATO allies.
AOC's declaration that "Woke 1 was crazy" indicates that the current trend in progressivism is, "well, sorry for the mess the first time around, that was unfortunate, but trust us, we'll get it right this time." Coincidentally, the University of Michigan will stop recording first semester grades to help freshmen with stress.
Ten states and DC now allow abortion until or through birth.
So, You Say You Want A Revolution?
> Speculation is growing that Russia will make a limited strike against a NATO member in the next few months, given the weakened position of the US and all NATO allies.
> Hillary Clinton: A Democrat president must remove all Trump admin people: "Do not let anybody hang around in some small office somewhere."
Kamala Harris: The Democratic Party needs to get comfortable with a certain kind of ruthlessness.
> Data centers in space are not even remotely practical.
> Hasan Piker is a very bad guy. The fact that he has an audience reflects the worst of us.
> North Korea to deploy up to 50,000 troops to Russia to fight against Ukraine.
> Oops, my bad - AOC declares “Woke 1 was crazy,” when asked about her previous positions on defunding the police. Yeah, those were wild and crazy times. Now, we get a do-over?
Actually, it's worse than that. Kinda like running over someone and laughing, "My bad." It also presupposes Woke 2.
However, many MAGA people also lost their minds over Trump.
The hysteria is equal opportunity.
> Life's complicated - Omar: "Ethiopia & Kenya stole our land. We must work together to liberate our occupied territories. Somalia is for Somalians only!”
> UK PM Andy Burnham declares wealthier areas need to “play their part” in housing asylum seekers, rather than concentrating them in poorer communities.
> Massachusetts eliminated its 24-week limit on abortion, leaving the decision to a physician’s judgment, under a bill Democratic Gov. Maura Healey signed Monday. The state joins nine others and Washington, D.C., in legalizing abortions at any point in pregnancy.
> Homicides in America’s biggest cities fell 17.2 percent in the first half of the year and robberies dropped 16.6 percent, according to a survey of 66 large police departments. The decline has now continued across two administrations, and was steepest in Washington, D.C., Memphis and Houston.
> Think about it. Trump secretly left Air Force One in Turkey to fly in another plane because of indications the Iranians were going to take out Air Force One. You are a reporter or politician left on Air Force One as bait. How does that make you feel?
> From GZERO Daily - "South Africa is asking other African countries to reimburse it for the costs of removing their citizens, after spending nearly $18 million on a massive deportation campaign. In recent months, the government has deported or helped other nations repatriate more than 80,000 migrants as it responds to a surge in anti-immigrant protests and attacks on migrants. So far, South Africa has sought reimbursement from Malawi, Nigeria, and Ethiopia, and it may send additional requests. The campaign comes as anti-immigrant groups blame foreign nationals for crime and unemployment, which is among the highest in the world. However, the protests and deportations have also strained relations with South Africa’s neighbors, some of which accuse it of failing to protect their citizens."
> It's complicated, but Mangione pleads guilty. Amazing how much effort it takes to convict a guy who was caught on camera.
Listen
Peter Zeihan here.
Election Interpretation - Medicare for All
This is the next installment of discussing election campaign promises versus reality.
Today, I address Medicare for all.
In a time of ridiculous medical costs and a totally broken healthcare system, campaigning to fix it is music to voters' ears and actually a very good idea.
However, reality is that we do not have the money - or the infrastructure or the doctors. But I will just focus on the money.
One of the first editorials I wrote some 30-odd years ago was "Medicare Must Die."
As I was putting together the framework for my thoughts, one central piece was that the costs of Medicare and Social Security would drive the country into unexplored areas of finance as we headed toward the middle of the 21st century. In effect, they would "bankrupt" the country and would drive the dollar and our standard of living down significantly.
Little did I know.
We have literally taken leave of our senses.
I was correct about Medicare and Social Security, but I did not foresee $2 trillion deficits and over 100% of GDP in debt. That was so absurd, it wasn't even on my list as an outlier. Sure, third world countries do it all the time, but this was the United States of America. We were going to be normally stupid and not insane.
I was wrong.
My central thesis was that we would fail because we are human. My implied thesis that we would do better than third world nations was just a combination of bias and hubris. We may be richer and more educated, but that's about it. Being richer and more educated just means the crash will be bigger because we could manipulate the system in more and more clever ways.
At some point - probably within the next decade, all of these Ponzi schemes will come to an end and we will have no alternative but to rethink all of our taxation and spending and square a lot of circles.
But, what if we could somehow implement Medicare for all?
The rationing of healthcare would be brutal. Everyone who has access to decent healthcare now will be appalled.
Wait times in the UK with its vaunted National Health Service, which has been up and running for a while, include:
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The goal is for 85% of patients to start treatment within two months of an urgent suspected cancer referral. Recent data shows performance hovering around 69.6% to 72.8%.
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The NHS Constitution states that non-urgent, consultant-led elective treatments have a maximum target wait time of 18 weeks from referral. However, national backlogs mean performance fluctuates; as of mid-2026, about 65.3% of patients begin treatment within 18 weeks.
Don't even think about asking for an MRI for a non-urgent case.
Anybody who can pays for private healthcare to get decent, timely care.
(I have previously discussed my brush with the NHS. In a ward with maybe 20 other people (when I got there; one died that night, so we got to 19), threadbare sheets, no doctor until 9am, who may not have time to see me, x-ray with a 1950s machine - but my treatment was free. Beth had to battle with the intern in charge. When it was over, Beth asked how the treatment could be so bad - she could sue him. He said, "No you can't; I'm safe. I can't be sued.")
Be careful what you ask for - even if you can't get it in the first place.
At some point, we need to quit looking for/demanding free lunches, but that's not going to happen any time soon. In the meantime, politicians will promise free lunches.
Scorecard so far:
Doing away with Electoral College - all but impossible.
Doing away with the Senate - all but impossible.
Packing the Supreme Court - doable with control of both Houses and the Presidency and elimination of the filibuster.
DC and Puerto Rico statehoods - Huh?
Doing away with inflation - our economy will have disinflationary and maybe deflationary periods, but the inevitable end game for our debt and deficits includes higher inflation and a lower dollar. In general, allowing for volatility, inflation is inevitable. Look for typical, self-defeating, political tactics like rent and price controls to make everyone feel better as pressures increase and foundations rot.
Medicare for all - highly unlikely and, if implemented, a total shock to the system as severe rationing of health care sets in.
The Market
> Time for a retracement in what could be a continuing bull market. However, the retracement could get your attention. Charts coming back soon.
> The Treasury sold $25 billion of 30-year bonds Thursday at a high yield of 5.216 percent, the highest borrowing cost for that maturity since 2001.
The Iran War
> My thesis continues to be that the war with Iran is a world-historical error on Trump's part. Its implications will ripple through economics and geopolitics for at least decades.
> The MOU expires Sunday, for whatever difference that makes.
> The US continues to be stalemated. Iran is determined to humiliate the US, but is suffering intensely from the cumulative effects of war. The US is basically left with the nuclear option and is otherwise unable to move meaningfully. Its blockade of the Strait is its primary weapon, and it is an effective one. Each side stares at the other as history unfolds.
> Trump just wants out. He will grasp any pretext to declare victory and go home. Most likely the opening of the Strait, imo inevitably with a toll, will be sufficient. The whole nuclear thing will be pushed to a later date, which will never come.
> Iran declares the Strait of Hormuz will stay closed until 2029, the end of Trump's term, unless Trump accepts all of Iran's demands, per a senior Iranian source and Majid Shakeri, advisor to Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf. Iran's demands in the US surrender document remain unchanged, $300 billion in compensation, the release of up to $100 billion in frozen assets, lifting all sanctions, US troop withdrawal from the entire region, an end to the naval blockade, and accepting transit fees on every ship.
> Iran warns it is preparing for military operations on US soil following a “new military doctrine tasking IRGC to attack enemy in its soil,” adding Iran will “take operations into enemy territory, into the enemy’s lands, and carry out operations far from our own territory,” IRGC senior advisor General Mohammad Reza Naqdi says. “Whenever the conditions are favorable and the order is issued, we must be able to take the operation into enemy territory,” Naqdi adds.
> Gulf states and their energy producers have lost faith in the Trump administration and are privately accepting Iran's permanent control over the Strait of Hormuz because the alternative, returning to war, would be worse, per WSJ.
> When the war began, I said it would be mid-late summer before the effects began to meaningfully begin to show up in the world economy. It is mid-late summer. Strategic oil reserves are all but depleted. Reduced refinery capacity cannot keep up with world demand, including for jet fuel, diesel and bunker oil. Europe does not have the natural gas reserves it needs for winter. Harvests across the world, for multiple reasons, are looking shaky. These effects will begin to compound as we head into Autumn and they are being compounded by Ukrainian attacks on the Russian shadow fleet and Russians blocking the grain trade out of Ukraine.
> Norwegian aluminum producer Norsk Hydro's Alunorte plant in Brazil, one of the world's largest alumina refineries, reduced output by 50% following disruptions to natural gas availability.
> Russian oil production plunged nearly 1 million barrels per day below its OPEC+ quota in July.
> Life's complicated - Ukraine has paused drone strikes on tankers at Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk after a request from Vice President J.D. Vance, the Financial Times reported, amid U.S. concern the strikes were disrupting oil exports and hurting American energy firms.
> From ZeroHedge - Crippling infrastructure damage and currency devaluation might help to explain Iran's desperate insistence on charging tolls in the Strait of Hormuz. If their oil industry is facing a multi-year setback and damage to infrastructure is extensive, tolls on shipping through the strait may be their only source of economic recovery.
Iranian citizens turning to theft to make ends meet is a far more profound issue than a similar trend would be in the US or Europe. In Iran, punishment for a first offense for theft of food is three months to one year of incarceration and up to 74 lashes. Multiple thefts can result in the amputation of fingers, life in prison or execution. The point is, stealing is no small matter in Iran and for people to turn to theft suggests extreme economic derailment.
> The UAE has released several billion dollars of Iran's frozen assets held in UAE banks, including 2 tonnes of gold worth $283 million, with the goal being that Iran spares the UAE from future attacks.
History Rhymes
Honre on X - Ludwig von Mises sat down in 1920 and published a paper that ended the intellectual case for socialism, even if the socialists took another seven decades to notice. The argument was precise. Mises showed that without private ownership of the means of production, there are no real prices for capital goods. Without prices, you cannot calculate profit and loss. Without profit and loss, economic planners have no way of knowing whether they are creating value or destroying it. They are flying blind, spending real resources with no feedback mechanism telling them whether the factory, the railway, or the grain depot was worth building. Every allocation becomes a guess dressed up as a decree. This, he called the Socialist Calculation Problem, and nobody answered it. Oskar Lange tried in 1936, proposing that socialist planners could simulate prices by trial and error. Mises read this and was unimpressed (charitably put). Lange assumed you could reproduce the function of market prices without the institution that generates them: private property, genuine exchange, real skin in the game. You cannot fake the signal and expect accurate information. The Soviet Union spent seventy years proving Mises right. Chronic shortages, misallocated steel, surplus winter boots in Georgia in July, famine engineered by committees convinced they understood grain supply better than the price system. The USSR collapsed in 1991 under the weight of precisely the inefficiencies Mises predicted in Vienna in 1920. You are watching this play out again today, every time a government sets energy prices, rent ceilings, or pharmaceutical price caps, and then expresses shock at the resulting shortages. The calculation problem did not expire with the Soviet Union. Bureaucrats who override price signals recreate the same blindness Mises identified. Mises told you exactly what would happen.
Agreed
Short Takes
> Reader CH added to my list of most important road signs from last week -
My favorite as for road signs are the ones that say, “Watch Out For Falling Rocks.” At least one state had the same thought I did so their signs say, “Watch Out For Fallen Rocks.” Of course, then my mind changed to consider rocks sinning and losing their faith.
> Who knew? - 3,000+ University of California faculty members push to bring back the SAT in admissions, after professors warn students are arriving "underprepared."
> I agree with David Burge on X regarding the WNBA - "In short this is not a women's sports league. It's a joyless, angry, violent, race obsessed non-stop 2018 Oberlin struggle session filled with entitled lunatics unable to survive without someone else picking up the bill. They whine when they don't get attention, and whine 10x harder when they do. They whine hardest about the problematic "new fans" who quadrupled their pay, tripled their TV audiences, 10x-ed their franchise valuations, got them charter jets, and staved off their inevitable bankruptcy for 10 years or so. I sincerely hope they achieve their dream of exorcising themselves of CC and all those dreaded "new fans," and return to their beloved Paradise Lost of half-empty 1000 seat high school gyms attended by girl fight fetishists with giveaway tickets printed on Subway Sandwich receipts."
(Kit) I can't remember whether I mentioned that some guy offered the WNBA $10 million if its champion would play a state champion high school basketball team and win. So far, no acceptance.
I'm all for women's sports, but this WNBA season is a gender-fluid, multiracial Lord of the Flies.
> 1991 Mars Bar found during a house clearance weighed 62.5g — more than 50% heavier than today’s 40g version.
> The University of Michigan will drop grades for first-semester freshmen next year in an effort to “curb the mental health crisis unfolding among college-aged individuals,” according to the school.
Instead of a letter grade, first-semester transcripts will show “pass or no credit.” The program is designed to help students “acclimate to the demands of college and allow intrinsic motivations to guide personally meaningful academic journeys,” the school said.
Of course, that just makes the first semester party time and a throw away and everyone will hunker down for the second semester.
I am no longer amazed at stupidity, even from the most intelligent among us.
> Leaving your cat alone for an entire day is now against the law in Sweden. According to 2026 regulations from the Swedish Board of Agriculture (Jordbruksverket), owners must ensure their pets' social and emotional needs are met alongside physical care. Owners are legally required to check on and interact with their cats at least twice a day.
> Russia placed Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s son Conor Kennedy on its international wanted list for fighting in the Ukraine war.
Gallery
Miscellaneous
Really, really good. (If you do not know about the great burrito debate, look it up) -
From the Bee - Jesus Ignites Fierce Debate By Feeding 5,000 People For Under $20.
