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Thanks to my friend and client Jamie Gibson I am now a regular reader of John Mauldin’s “Outside the Box” (http://www.2000wave.com). Whilst I don’t always agree with John’s research it is nevertheless always an interesting and enlightening read. This week he focused on an article written by Doug Casey in 1997 which was based heavily on the research of Neil Howe who is a social scientist and historian. The 1997 article reads as follows:

“An excellent case can be made the US is approaching another time of secular crisis, a Fourth Turning, with an expected due date of 2005 – seven years from now – plus or minus a few years in either direction.

The Stamp Acts catalyzed the American Revolution, the election of Lincoln catalyzed the Civil War, the Crash of ’29 catalyzed the Depression/WW II era. What might precipitate the elements now floating in solution? The answer is practically any random event that’s sufficiently traumatic. Any of the theses of current disaster/action novels and movies will do nicely. Perhaps the accidental or intentional release of a super plague vector. The crashing of an airliner into the Capitol during a joint session. An all-out assault on the IRS computers by an armed group – or perhaps the computers just melting down due to the Year 2000 Problem. Perhaps a financial disaster that cascades into the Greater Depression. In any of these, or a hundred other scenarios, the federal government would almost certainly act precipitously and with a heavy hand, which would bring on a whole other set of consequences.

There’s no way of telling where the Crisis will lead, or how it will end. That’s going to depend not only on exactly who’s in control, but what they do, who they’re up against, and a hundred other variables we can’t even anticipate.

One thing that seems certain is that real crisis brings out strong leadership. Because of its age and size, it will come from the Boomer generation, and it will be in the mold of Roosevelt or Lincoln – both very dangerous precedents. The boomers in elderhood will be dogmatic, harsh, puritanical, and quite willing to burn down the barn in order to destroy whatever rats they see. Admix that attitude to a time resembling the Revolution, the Civil War, or WW II, overlain with today’s ethnic strife, urbanization, financial overextension, and powerful, compact new weaponry in the hands of foreign fanatics out to teach the Great Satan a lesson and it’s a real witch’s brew”.

It is scary to think that the 9/11 attacks and the credit crunch are covered within five paragraphs. Let’s hope that the “compact new weaponry in the hands of foreign fanatics” doesn’t prove to be the third accurate prediction.

Seriously though it is something that we need to consider. What would the impact be of even a small nuclear device being detonated in any city anywhere in the world? Only by thinking about these things in advance can we ever sensibly react to them if they ever come to pass.