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The Pendulum and The Pit - Retaliatory Regulation and Its Result - 04.23.2010
Note: This article was written by
Douglas Castle, Vice Chairman of
The National Networker Companies, for publication in
THE GLOBAL FUTURIST, with all rights reserved.
Dear Fellow Futurists and Friends:
History has a tendency to repeat itself (with certain variations and aberrations which cannot usually be foreseen because they are not within the realm of Human physiology, behavioral psychology or our limited understanding of physics and complexity theory) in a cause-and-effect, wavelike pattern. The pattern is best observed from a distance and over long expanses of time.
The elusive aspect of prognostication by wave theory has to do with variations in certain aspects of the wave, such as its amplitude (depth, in peaks and valleys) and its frequency (the speed at which the wave will begin to reverse its direction) -- put simply, if we eliminate all kinds of comet collisions, accidental nuclear bomb detonations [oops!], alien invasions and far-reaching biological or geological disasters, we can have a fair idea about what is going to happen, but we don't know exactly when and to what extent.
With apologies to the late and profoundly tormented Edgar A. Poe (author of
The Pit and The Pendulum), these waves are often described as "swings of the pendulum", from one extreme to the opposite extreme. As good citizens (I'm smirking just a bit), we are all gathered in a darkened pit underneath this massive object, feeling the swish in the rush of its blade, anticipating the moment that it will, sooner or later, make icy contact with our vulnerable and quivering flesh.
When you combine an event which is certain to occur (i.e., the slice) with an uncertain timeframe, you have a recipe for fear. Uncle Boris used to refer to this as the "Russian Roulette of Reality."
I can provide you with neither the timing nor the magnitude of the phenomena which I will outline here, but I would wager a goodly sum that they will certainly occur within the next three years throughout the industrialized world and to the greatest extent in the US:
1. An angry, disillusioned populace and wildly zealous legislators, acting in concert with frustrated, increasingly unpopular and overwhelmed executives (presidents, prime ministers, kings, and other leaders), will force the passage of an historically unprecedented amount of draconian regulation ['retaliatory regulation'] which will impact every company in every industry sector. The costs of compliance, as well as the fines and penalties imposed for infractions, will drive many companies out of business, especially the smaller ones which are not romantically intertwined with their respective governments. The result:
- Many small business failures;
- Loss of private sector jobs (except for attorneys), with a great portion of these displaced workers being "absorbed" into employment within the government sector, which will grow. Sadly this growth will be neither productive nor profitable, and sovereign debt will increase, taxes upon those who are the easiest targets will increase, and productivity (real GDP, innovation, advancement) will decline. Remember "stagflation"? You will.;
- The largest corporations and their respective governments will become increasingly interwoven, interdependent and inseparable in an unannounced merger. If you are neither an executive of a "too-big-to-fail" company, nor a government official, you will either be a veritable slave, a very aggressive entrepreneur, a trust fund beneficiary (if you are a scion blessed with the proper lineage of one of the ruling families), a thief, a prisoner (incarceration produces jobs and removes people on both sides of the bars from the unemployment statistics), or dead.
2. Cults, common-interest groups, revivalist religious movements and very well-armed citizen militias will all be activated and agitated, each with more adherents than ever before, especially among those overtaxed and disenfranchised by the inevitable marriage of big business and big government, i.e., those "slow moving natives" who are called upon to sacrifice everything in order to pay for the sins and excesses of the privileged few.
3. The newly married big business and government conglomerated entities will be at war with all of those people and groups cited in #2, above. This war will start with tighter governance, greater restrictions of all liberties and increasing demands upon an overtaxed, angry "outworlder" public -- and it will eventually escalate into violent confrontations.
Does this sound like science fiction? I believe that the three-part scenario outlined above has already commenced, albeit quietly, with a great many government diversions and distractions keeping the harsh light focused elsewhere, while the people in the pit are beginning to compare notes. When slaves communicate, when they unite, when they begin to organize, the masters (if they are awake and aware enough to notice these seditious and ambitious behaviors) tend to adopt a "kill-or-be-killed" attitude.
It might be a good idea to review your old school notes about Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Marie Antoinette, The Romanovs, Paul Revere, Che Guevarra, The Bay of Pigs,
the VietNam "conflict," the various Inquisitions, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the fall of Enron, and, of course,
The Fall of the House of Usher.
I prescribe education, communication, organization, unification as a means to preparation for survival.
When next I post, I'll just revert to stating facts, citing trends and offering conjecture as to their implications. Thank you for indulging me this once and for letting me share my fears with you.
Faithfully,
Douglas Castle
http://aboutDouglasCastle.blogspot.com
Labels, Tags and Terms: The Global Futurist, stagflation, predictions, big government marries big business, displaced populace, the seeds of insurrection, slaves and masters, The National Networker Companies, TNNWC
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