Harry Dent: We're Poised for a Cultural and Social Civil War

February 15, 2017

WRITER

Harry Dent, author of The Sale of a Lifetime: How the Great Bubble Burst of 2017-2019 Can Make You Rich, joined Glenn on radio today to talk about the economic bubble we're in --- and how the government is only prolonging and worsening the inevitable.

"Governments are trying to prevent the obvious: A natural generational down cycle, like we saw from 1969 to '82 and from 1930 to '42. This happens every 40 years, and we shouldn't prevent these cycles. We should let them happen and clear the decks of debt and excess capacity and bad companies to get efficient and prepare for the next generational boom. And we're not doing that," Dent said.

The government's answer has been to interfere with endless quantitative easing, infrastructure spending and globalization --- but it's all starting to fail.

"Globalization has peaked. The second big surge from World War II into recently has peaked. Globalization has been a great productivity tool --- better trade, all this stuff --- but it has gone too far," Dent said.

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

GLENN: Harry Dent is a friend of the program. Glad to have you back on, Harry. He's got a book out, The Sale of a Lifetime: How the Great Bubble Burst of 2017 Can Make You Rich.

Harry, you and I kind of look at the world in similar ways: I don't buy into -- let me say it this way: I believe in seasons. I believe in the Kondratiev way. I believe in expansion and contraction and that patterns repeat. But everyone wants to deny those patterns even though you can go back, you know, 100 years plus and see that those patterns are there. Can you explain the -- the cycles and principles of bubbles?

HARRY: Yeah. You know, this is a part of the entire creation. There's just no question about it. Everything goes up and down. It's even Newton's third law of physics. And that's what I do, is I study cycles.

And in the '80s, I discovered demographic cycles, which economists and nobody else I know of, have much of a clue on.

The Baby Boom drove us up with their spending from 1983 to 2007, just a 46-year lag on the birth index. That's how complex that was.

In 2008 into 2023, they drive us down. And, of course, governments have been fighting that with quantitative easing, and now Trump is going to come in and do fiscal stimulus and cut taxes and build infrastructure. It's not going to happen.

So that's --

GLENN: Wait. Wait. Wait. You're saying it's not going to happen. This is so important.

HARRY: Not going to happen, period.

GLENN: If you can explain a little bit. Because when you said this to me a while back and we were talking about real estate and you explained, "Glenn, the day of the big house is over for quite some time," and you explained it because of the demographic bubble, I got it for the first time. Can you explain that?

HARRY: Yeah, two things: People buy their house a little earlier. The biggest house, the McMansion, if you can afford one, before their peak in spending at 46, at age 41. That's why the housing bubble peaked ahead of the overall economy that started going down in 2008.

The housing started going down a few years earlier. And in addition to that, for the first time in history, we have a small -- or slightly, in this case, slightly smaller generation. In many countries, a lot smaller, like Germany in most of Europe and Japan and east Asia, a smaller generation to follow. Houses last forever.

We don't ever need to build another house in this country. And you've got 8 million empty homes in Japan and also a bunch in Germany and more to come because as people die, they become sellers. When there's more Baby Boomers dying than millennials buying houses, then you actually have net contraction in the need for homes, as we're already seeing in many countries.

So demographics is very predictive. It's scientific. You can project it decades into the future, including inflation. Including overall growth and contraction, housing, potato chips, car buying. They all happen at different times in the consumer lifestyle, but I know when. You know, life insurance actuaries can tell you when the average person is going to die. It's 79.6 in the US. I can tell you when they're going to buy everything from cradle to grave. You know, from baby cribs to nursing home.

GLENN: So what is the -- what do those demographics now say about 2017?

HARRY: Well, they say, first of all, we've been in a desk graphic down trend. Biggest boom in history from Baby Boomers now turns into the biggest bust. And if it weren't for quantitative easing, we'd all be in a depression because we also have an 80-year four-season cycle as you know. The winter season, I said decades ago, would be 2008 to 2023.

We're in that season. It's just they're turning up the heat with endless quantitative easing.

The problem is, it's not working anymore. Negative interest rates started to backfire in Europe and Japan.

And so now, everybody is backing off of that. We were first. And now Trump is saying, "Well, then I'll just cut taxes, and I'll build endless infrastructures."

You can't -- we don't need more infrastructures. Aging people don't buy more of anything. They pay down debt. They don't drive more. They buy almost no real estate, except nursing homes that somebody provides for them.

We don't need more infrastructure. So this is all going to be wasteful spending. Governments are trying to prevent the obvious: A natural generational down cycle, like we saw from 1969 to '82 and from 1930 to '42. This happens every 40 years, and we shouldn't prevent these cycles. We should let them happen and clear the decks of debt and excess capacity and bad companies to get efficient and prepare for the next generational boom. And we're not doing that.

Japan is stimulated, ever since 1997, and guess what, they're in a coma economy. Never entered the next spring season. They're 15, 20 years ahead of us. And they've killed their economy. They've killed innovation. They've been growing at zero -- with zero productivity and zero inflation. And that's where we're heading. When Trump says he's going to create 4 percent growth, it's not going to happen. I would stake my life on that. More than a quarter or two and people get excited because our workforce is no longer growing.

It's actually shrinking a bit in the next several years. Productivity is back from 3 to 4 percent, down to zero, because old people don't get more productive, they get less.

And Baby Boomers continue to retire from 2000, all the way to 2024, '25. So that's going to take more people out of the workforce and make us less productive. So we're going to go from zero to negative. We're going to be lucky to grow above zero for the next two terms of his administration. And I hate to say this, Glenn. It's nothing against Donald.

I predicted today, got elected, he wouldn't last the first year. Will not last the first year is my likely prediction.

GLENN: Wow.

HARRY: Because he's promised something he cannot deliver. He's pissed everybody off in every realm. Countries, immigrants, you know, ethnic groups, women. All this sort of stuff. He has the impulse control of a grease fire.

GLENN: Let me tell you -- let me tell you -- give you a counter to that.

When there is financial trouble and strife, a country can go one of two ways: It can go into riots in the streets, or it can go into nationalism and we all pull together. And we seem to be going the national way, without the economic strife yet.

If you're saying the bubble burst is happening this year, I see a rise of nationalism. And that would make him stronger.

HARRY: Yeah, no, actually I predicted this before the election, that this thing, you know, Brexit and then the Italian vote and then Trump winning against the odds and we're going to see much more -- this is a global phenomenon.

GLENN: It is.

HARRY: Globalization has peaked. The second big surge from World War II into recently has peaked. Globalization has been a great productivity tool. Better trade. All this stuff. But it has gone too far. Too many people feel like their jobs have been lost. We've been put face-to-face in an internet globalized world. And now we've got a huge inflict in values.

GLENN: So what does this mean? What does this mean to the average person, Harry?

HARRY: It means we've got a cultural social civil war. In other words, the blue states and the red states, the blue cities, red cities, whatever you want to call it, are so polarized. And I've got measurements of this.

I mean, this is life just before the Civil War. That there's no way to have compromise. There's no way to have a government.

If Trump succeeds -- and he is. He's doing exactly what his voters told him to do. But what's happening is now the blue states are reacting. If Hillary had come in, she would have the blue way, and the red states would have reacted.

Before the election, I said, if Hillary gets elected, somewhere pretty soon, states like Texas are going to talk about leaving the union. Well, guess who's got a petition to put on ballot in 2018 --

GLENN: California.

HARRY: -- for California to start to leave the union. And California is the largest state. Controls the two most productive dominant US industries in the world. Entertainment and Silicon Valley. And if they threaten to leave, that makes Italy and Greece threatening to leave the euro like nothing. So I think we have a civil -- I don't know how it works out. But I know the red states and the blue states cannot come to compromise. Trump is rolling forward as if he has a mandate from the red states. And he does. But does that say the blue states have to say, "Well, we'll just roll over and do everything you say?" California is already saying no. There's ten or 15 states that they could follow them. Now, what happens then? The South succeeded in the Civil War. We'll see what happens. But I think the only way we may come together as a country, is when we realize, oh, my God, if we don't find some way to work this out together, we're going to split in two, and we're not going to have the power we had.

GLENN: So let me ask you this: We just saw that Jim Rodgers said, the death of cash is coming. Total government control of spending. We've seen this in India. We're seeing the beginnings of it in Australia.

You know, I read a -- I read a book recently called Defying Hitler, that really, when I read how Weimar Republic got out of their problems, I thought, oh, my gosh, they actually thought that worked. They thought that was a good thing.

And I think the central banks have looked at that lesson and said, "Well, we could always do that." And, you know, you look at this with the inflating of the money. Because we were worried about deflation. The inflating of the money. The growing government control. Now they're starting to digitize currency and saying, "Hey, you got a cap on this." They're allowing the banks to say, "We could have a bail-in." I think we are headed for a firestorm in the financial sector with the people picking up pitchforks as they trap their money in banks and won't allow them to have cash or at least large sums of cash.

HARRY: Yeah. This is one of many issues. And I do see civil unrest. I am -- I am in Puerto Rico now. It's a bankrupt country, but at least they know it. And they're dealing with it like Iceland did. And, by the way, Iceland devalued. Did everything Greece should have done: Defaulted on their foreign debts. Went through three years of inflation. They crippled their consumers and came out the other side and are growing at 4 percent again.

They took their medicine, instead of endless bailouts, endless denial. Bail-ins -- you go and take the best small businesses and large businesses and high net worth deposits over 100,000 and have those people bail out a bank and you think they'll ever put money in a bank again and people won't have pitchforks? So all of this reaction is coming from the fact that governments are not facing the problem. Politicians are not telling people, like in Puerto Rico, which they've been foreseeing that we are bankrupt. We are way more bankrupt than Puerto Rico.

GLENN: But we can't declare -- but we can't declare bankruptcy. The United States can't default on their debt.

HARRY: No, no, no, but you can restructure, especially private debt. What businesses do when businesses get in trouble in the economy, it used to be Chapter 7. Fire sale. And you get 10 cents on the dollar. The vulture creditors come in.

The US was the one that innovated Chapter 11. Let the courts protect the business for a short period of time so they can sell off their assets in an orderly manner instead of fire sale. Have time to renegotiate with creditors and say, "Hey, what if we pay you 50 cents instead of you getting 10 percent in a fire sale?" And then they come to an agreement and everything moves forward.

We need that. We have to write off debt. You can't keep bailing out banks and things in countries like Greece. You have to restructure the debt and let the banks and the bondholders and the equity investors who took the risk from those things take losses. And then if governments do provide some financial assistance, it's only in direction correlation to the amount that banks wrote down. Because when they write down debt, guess what, businesses and consumers get relief, it freeze up cash flow, and we can grow again. We will never come out of this with these denial policies. And every policy from QE to building infrastructures for nobody, you know, cutting taxes, all you're doing is changing the fixed pie. You're saying, "Okay. We're going to take money that would have gone to government and give it to businesses."

Well, why not just send everybody a 20,000 check like we gave the banks all this QE money. This is denial. It doesn't solve the problem. It's like taking a drug to feel better and keep from coming down, rather than going to detox.

We need a giant detox. Detox does not come without banks and some businesses going under that are zombies. And it doesn't come without writing down debts. And we did that in spades in the Great Depression. The Great Depression only took three years to bottom. And we did nothing but grow after that.

Because like Iceland, we took our medicine and went on, instead of doing this denial. Oh -- you know, even Trump came in and said, "We're in a big, fat ugly bubble." Well, he hasn't studied bubbles. You can't just walk out of a bubble. Bubbles are extremes, and you have to rebalance, and that is painful. Just like detox. It's exactly like detox for a drug addict. There's no other choice.

GLENN: Harry, I appreciate it. Thank you so much for being on with us. The name of the book is The Sale Of a Lifetime: How the Great Bubble Burst of 2017 Through 2019 Can Make You Rich.

Harry Dent. I highly recommend that you pay attention to him and that you pick up his book and read it. Harry, I can't thank you enough. Thank you for being on.

Critical theory destroys truth and justice

Editor's note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

Critical theory once stood out as the absurd progressive notion that it is. Now, its maxims are becoming an integral part of ordinary political discourse. The more you repeat a lie, the more you will believe it, and this is the very dangerous place in which we find ourselves today.

Take this critical theory maxim as an example: If we desire justice, we must sometimes champion what may appear superficially as injustice. It's a necessary evil, if you will, the necessity of “controlled injustice.”

By using truth through fabrication and controlled injustice for justice, we’ll save the republic. We’ll be acting in a noble way.

This definition of justice is defined by the “oppressed,” not the “oppressor.” It is the greatest happiness for the greatest number. To achieve this justice, however, we need to endorse acts on occasion that, while seemingly unjust, serve a higher purpose. It will ensure the stability and the unity of our republic, and this may manifest in ways that seem contradictory to our values. But these are the necessary shadows to cast light on “true justice.”

And isn’t that what we are all after, anyway?

Here’s another critical theory maxim: Sometimes we find the truth through fabrication. Our pursuit of truth sometimes requires a strategic use of falsehoods. The truth is a construct that has been shaped and tailored to promote the well-being of the collective.

We sometimes need to accept and propagate lies designed by "the system” — not the old system, but the system that we’re now using to replace the old to get more justice through injustice and more truth through fabrication.

We’re engaging in a higher form of honesty. When we fabricate, it’s for the right reason. We are reaching up to the heavens fighting for a higher sort of honesty. To fortify the truth, we occasionally must weave a tapestry of lies. Each thread, essential for the greater picture, will ultimately define our understanding and ensure our unity under this infallible wisdom.

The election is coming up. Does this maxim sound familiar? Many think it is imperative that we secure our republic through election control to maintain our republic. Sometimes, we might need to take actions that by traditional standards might be questionable.

The act of securing elections requires cheating. It's not mere deception. It is a noble act of safeguarding our way of life. We're on the verge of losing this democracy, and without deception, we will lose it.

To ensure it doesn't fall into the hands of those we know will destroy it, we may have to make a few fabrications. We're fabricating stories to be able to control or secure the republic through our elections. By using truth through fabrication and controlled injustice for justice, we'll save the republic. Therefore, we'll be acting in a noble way. Stealing an election from those who wish to harm our society is truly an act of valor and an essential measure to protect our values and ensure the continuation of our just society.

If we desire justice, we must sometimes champion what may appear superficially as injustice.

I know it's a paradox of honor through dishonor. But in this context, by embracing the dishonor, we achieve the highest form of honor, ensuring the stability and the continuation of our great republic.

Let this be heard, far and wide, as a great call to patriotic action. As we advance, let each of us, citizens of this great and honorable republic, consider these principles. Not as abstract or paradoxical but as practical guides to daily life. Embrace the necessity of controlled injustice, the utility of lies, the duty to secure our electoral process, and the honor and apparent dishonor. These are not merely strategies for survival. They are prerequisites for our prosperity.

We all have to remember that justice is what our leaders define, that truth is what our party tells us. Our republic stands strong on the values of injustice for justice, honor through dishonor, and the fabrication of truths. To deviate from this path is to jeopardize the very fabric of our society. Strength through unity; unity through strength.

We've heard this nonsense for so long. But now, this nonsense is becoming an instituted reality, and we are entering perilous times. Don't be fooled by the narratives you will hear during the march to November. Never let someone convince you that the ends justify the means, that a little bit of injustice is needed to achieve a broader, collective vision of justice, that truth sometimes requires fabricated lies and narratives. If we do, justice will cease to be justice, truth will cease to be truth, and our republic will be lost.

Top 5 MOST EVIL taxes the government extorts from you

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"In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes." -Ben Franklin

The injustice of taxation has been a core issue for Americans since the very beginning of our country, and it's a problem we have yet to resolve. This belief was recently reignited in many Americans earlier this month on tax day when the numbers were crunched and it was discovered that the government was somehow owed even more hard-earned money. As Glenn recently discussed on his show, it's getting to be impossible for most Americans to afford to live comfortably, inflation is rising, and our politicians keep getting richer.

The taxpayer's burden is heavier than ever.

The government is not above some real low blows either. While taxes are a necessary evil, some taxes stretch the definition of "necessary" and emphasize the "evil." Here are the top five most despicable taxes that are designed to line the IRS coffers at your expense:

Income Tax

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"It would be a hard government that should tax its people one-tenth part of their income." -Ben Franklin

On February 24th, 2024 we hit a very unfortunate milestone, the 101st anniversary of the 16th Amendment, which authorized federal income tax. Where does the government get the right to steal directly out of your paycheck?

Death Taxes

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"Now my advice for those who die, Declare the pennies on your eyes" -George Harrison

Not even in death can you escape the cold pursuit of the tax collector. It's not good enough that you have to pay taxes on everything you buy and every penny you make your entire life. Now the feds want a nice slice, based on the entire value of your estate, that can be as much as 40 percent. Then the state government gets to stick their slimy fingers all over whatever remains before your family is left with the crumbs. It's practically grave-robbery.

Payroll

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"The power to tax is the power to destroy." -John Marshall

What's that? The nice chunk of your paycheck the government nabs before you can even get it to the bank wasn't enough? What if the government taxed your employer just for paying you? In essence, you make less than what your agreed pay rate is and it costs your employer more! Absolutely abominable.

Social Security

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"We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much." -Ronald Reagan

Everyone knows the collapse of Social Security is imminent. It has limped along for years, only sustained by a torrent of tax dollars and the desperate actions of politicians. For decades, people have unwillingly forked over money into the system they will never see again.

FICA

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"What at first was plunder assumed the softer name of revenue." -Thomas Paine

FICA is the payroll equivalent of Social Security. Your employer has to match however much you pay. It means it costs your employer even more to pay you—again, you'll NEVER see that money. At this point, are you even working for yourself, or are you just here to generate money for the government to frivolously throw away?

5 DISTURBING ways World War III will be different from previous wars

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Has World War III begun?

Over the weekend, Iran launched an unprecedented attack against Israel involving over 300 missiles and drones. This marked the first direct attack on Israel originating from Iranian territory. Fortunately, according to an Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, 99 percent of missiles and drones were successfully neutralized by Israeli defense systems. Iran claimed that the operation against Israel had concluded and that no further offensive was planned, although the possibility of another attack is still present.

This has left many people, including Glenn, wondering the same thing: did we just witness the start of World War III?

Glenn recently had a World War II Air Force Veteran as a guest on his TV special, who told stories of the horrors he and his brothers-in-arms faced in the skies over war-torn Europe. This was a timely reminder of the terrors of war and a warning that our future, if it leads to another world war, is a dark one.

But, if Glenn's coverage of the Iranian attack revealed one thing, it's that World War III will look nothing like the world wars of the twentieth century. Long gone are the days of John "Lucky" Luckadoo and his "Bloody Hundredth" bravely flying their B-17s into battle. Over the weekend, we saw hundreds of autonomous drones and missiles clashing with extreme speed and precision over several different fronts (including space) simultaneously. This ain't your grandfather's war.

From EMP strikes to cyber attacks, here are FIVE ways the face of war has changed:

EMP attacks

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The entire modern world, on every level, is completely dependent on electricity. From your home refrigerator to international trade, the world would come to a grinding halt without power. And as Glenn has pointed out, it wouldn't even be that hard to pull off. All it would take is 3 strategically placed, high-altitude nuclear detonations and the entire continental U.S. would be without power for months if not years. This would cause mass panic across the country, which would be devastating enough on its own, but the chaos could be a perfect opportunity for a U.S. land invasion.

Nuclear strikes

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Nuclear war is nothing new. Many of us grew up during the Cold War, built fallout shelters, and learned to duck and cover. But times have changed. The Berlin Wall fell and so did the preparedness of the average American to weather a nuclear attack. As technology has advanced, more of our adversaries than ever have U.S. cities within their crosshairs, and as Glenn has pointed out, these adversaries are not exactly shy about that fact. Unfortunately, the possibility of an atomic apocalypse is as real as ever.

Immigration warfare

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The strategy of strangling an opposing nation's economy to gain the upper hand is a wartime tactic as old as time. That's why the Border Crisis is so alarming. What better way to damage an opponent's economy than by overburdening it with millions of undocumented immigrants? As Glenn has covered, these immigrants are not making the trek unaided. There is a wide selection of organizations that facilitate this growing disaster. These organizations are receiving backing from around the globe, such as the WEF, the UN, and U.S. Democrats! Americans are already feeling the effects of the border crisis. Imagine how this tactic could be exploited in war.

Cyber shutdowns

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Cyber attacks will be a major tactic in future wars. We've already experienced relatively minor cyber strikes from Russia, China, and North Korea, and it is a very real possibility that one of our adversaries inflicts a larger attack with devastating consequences on the United States. In fact, the WEF has already predicted a "catastrophic" cyber attack is imminent, and Glenn suggests that it is time to start preparing ourselves. A cyber attack could be every bit as devastating as an EMP, and in a world run by computers, nothing is safe.

Biological assault

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Don't trust the "experts." That was the takeaway many of us had from the pandemic, but something less talked about is the revelation that China has manufactured viruses that are capable of spreading across the globe. We now know that the lab leak hypothesis is true and that the Wuhan lab manufactured the virus that infected the entire world. That was only ONE virus from ONE lab. Imagine what else the enemies of America might be cooking up.

The government is WAGING WAR against these 3 basic needs

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The government has launched a full-on assault against our basic needs, and people are starting to take notice.

As long-time followers of Glenn are probably aware, our right to food, water, and power is under siege. The government no longer cares about our general welfare. Instead, our money lines the pockets of our politicians, funds overseas wars, or goes towards some woke-ESG-climate-Great Reset bullcrap. And when they do care, it's not in a way that benefits the American people.

From cracking down on meat production to blocking affordable power, this is how the government is attacking your basic needs:

Food

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Glenn had Rep. Thomas Massie on his show where he sounded the alarm about the attack on our food. The government has been waging war against our food since the thirties when Congress passed the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938. They started by setting strict limits on how many crops a farmer could grow in a season and punishing anyone who grew more—even if it was intended for personal use, not for sale on the market. This sort of autocratic behavior has continued into the modern day and has only gotten more draconian. Today, not only are you forced to buy meat that a USDA-approved facility has processed, but the elites want meat in general off the menu. Cow farts are too dangerous to the environment, so the WEF wants you to eat climate-friendly alternatives—like bugs.

Water

ALESSANDRO RAMPAZZO / Contributor | Getty Images

As Glenn discussed during a recent Glenn TV special, the government has been encroaching on our water for years. It all started when Congress passed the Clean Water Act in 1972, which gave the government the ability to regulate large bodies of water. As the name suggests, the act was primarily intended to keep large waterways clear of pollution, but over time it has allowed the feds to assume more and more control over the country's water supply. Most recently, the Biden administration attempted to expand the reach of the Clean Water Act to include even more water and was only stopped by the Supreme Court.

Electricity