The Collective Consciousness Cycle

Welcome to This Week’s Leyendecker View

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the worst.
– C.S. Lewis

THINKING OUT LOUD

The Collective Consciousness Cycle

Everything in the known universe operates in some kind of life cycle. Something is born, it lives, it dies. This is just as true for us as it is for everything from a product to our solar system and everything in between.

Our collective consciousness has a cycle, as well. A collective consciousness is born, it saturates society, it weakens, and it dies. This cycle tends to follow our economic cycle. When economic times are good, we tend to become less disciplined. When economic times are hard, we tend to become more disciplined. It’s just human nature.

So where are we in our current collective consciousness cycle? It appears we have started a transition from a liberal to a conservative point of view. Here’s some history…

During the 1930s, the US experienced the Great Depression, followed by World War II in the 1940s. These were hard times that naturally influenced the collective consciousness to become more conservative.

Then after World War II, the US became the global economic leader. The country prospered greatly. Yet for a good many years post World War II, our conservative consciousness continued to dominate. The memory of the Great Depression and World War II had not yet been forgotten.

By the late 1950s and early 1960s, conservative consciousness reached a point of diminishing returns. Hard-core conservatives, like Senator Joseph McCarthy and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, conducted communist witch hunts and abused their power to subvert and punish all thinking and acting that were not in lockstep with their ideology.

Many innocent people were accused of things they either had not done or their actions were twisted into narratives to please the witch hunters.

Not quite coincidentally, beginning in the 1950s, when annual GDP was growing in the 8%-to-10% range, more liberal values took root . The country did not have to be so conservative anymore. It could afford to be more liberal. By the 1960s, this liberal collective consciousness gained a lot of momentum.

Today, liberal values have so saturated society that they are reaching a point of diminishing returns, replete with witch hunts, this time for people whose thoughts and actions don’t align with progressive or woke values. At the same time, our GDP struggles to exceed much more than 2% a year. This meager growth is only happening due to the federal government’s fiscal and monetary stimulus, which is exploding our federal debt.

As the novelist G. Michael Hopf wrote, “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.”

It should be no surprise that as progressive and woke values dominated our national narrative, the liberal collective consciousness cycle reached its point of diminishing returns. With the economy struggling to grow without massive government assistance, the average American is naturally going to develop more conservative values. 

THE ECONOMIC VIEW

US GDP still looks good
So why lower interest rates?

New job creation was dismal
Hurricanes cloud jobs report.

Consumer confidence surges
Before the election, no less.
Is it because the stock market is up?
Stock ownership is at all-time high

Even households earning more than $150K
Are living paycheck to paycheck
Americans pinch pennies on coffee

INFLATION, DEFLATION, OR BOTH?

US inflation slows a bit
While Europe’s inflation rises a bit
Whatcha thinkin’, central banks?

Will inflation follow the election?
Volatility is the norm now.

THE LABOR VIEW

Job postings are weak.
At lowest level in 3.5 years
Yet ADP says jobs and pay are booming

Bring back pensions
Demands Boeing union

The “Peter Principle”
Most companies are loaded with them.

MEANWHILE IN EUROPE

The UK has an economic plan.
Raise taxes and borrow more money
Britain’s work culture is a mess
They’ve lost their motivation.
18 – 24 year olds’ unemployment grows

The EU economy may be stumbling.
While Spain’s economy is on fire
Helping growth return to Eurozone
Lower emissions come with slow economy

Americans work harder than Europeans
Says Norway sovereign wealth fund chief.

THE GLOBAL GAME

Mexico limits power of judiciary
Will Mexico be the next Perón Argentina?
A Mexican mayor is beheaded
Who runs Mexico?

Peak population is coming.
Maybe sooner than we think

Developing countries
Want the EU to stop lecturing them

THE UKRAINE FIRE

US drones standing tall in Ukraine.
AI helps them navigate defenses

Russia and Ukraine worry about power.
So there’s talk of not attacking their plants

India can help end the war
Says Zelensky.

THE GAZA FIRE

Israel open to short Gaza truce
To get more hostages back.

Israel ready for Lebanon truce
Mission accomplished?

Israel cuts ties to UN agency
Is UNRWA a Hamas ally?

THE SLIPPERY SLOPE

WWIII may have already begun
Says JPMorgan CEO, Jamie Dimon.

Pentagon running low on air defense missiles
Crank up the munitions factories!

The US military’s weapon of choice
Is a familiar video game controller
Why we need space lasers
To destroy space junk, or what?

FINANCE

Private equity storms Japan
Will inflation follow?

US deficit driving bond yields higher
The low-rate era may be over.

Citi moves vital infrastructure to Google Cloud
Nothing could go wrong here!

REAL ESTATE

Mortgage rates keep rising
Homebuilders love lower rates.
But not if more supply hits the market
Property tax bills are soaring

Bosses calling workers back to office
Good news for landlords.

Commercial real estate debt is imploding.
Foreclosures jump almost 50%
Causing havoc in the CMO market

IS TECH A WRECK?

Alphabet’s earnings soar
Microsoft beats expectations
Meta also out performs
And iPhone sales surge
Amazon posts record earnings
No wreck here!

25% of Google’s new code
Is AI generated

Meta is developing a search engine
To compete with Google and Microsoft.

THE CHAT ON AI

OpenAI suffers another departure
Amid fresh claims of copyright infringement
New AI model to be released soon

AI agents will be mainstream in 2025
So believes OpenAI.
What are AI agents?
How intelligent is AI?
Is it mere imitation?

OUR GOOD FRIEND, FAILURE

Democracy may be at risk.
Because it’s no longer pro worker

The global prevalence of obesity
Guess who’s the winner?

Chefs are tired of owning restaurants
It’s too hard to make money.

THE NEXT NORMAL

The death of American exceptionalism
Is the American dream dead?

Print magazines are on a rebound
Are we tiring of digital TMI?

Got your giant Halloween skeleton?
It’s the new status symbol.

THE WAR ON CARBON

The oil business was written off.
Now it’s the most productive US industry

Climate change is causing sleep loss
Humans love a scapegoat!

Data centers could keep cities warm
While tech takes control of everything.

THE ENERGY TRANSITION

Big tech leads nuclear renaissance

With a focus on smaller reactors.

Wall Street bets big time

On AI’s skyrocketing power needs

US and European hydrogen prices collapse

Low demand, regulatory burden and more.

THE EV DREAM—OR DELUSION

Ford pauses EV truck production
Real truck drivers don’t want an EV.
Ford’s EV losses persist and profits fall

Europe’s EV sales are plummeting
Time for more free government money.

VW announces new US EVs
Are they as cheap as China’s?
But VW is in big trouble

THE CHINA SYNDROME

China’s industrial profits collapse
Time for more stimulus!!!

2023 was China’s peak emissions year
Is this an economic indicator?

As a dominant rare earth minerals producer
China squeezes chip industry

THE WASHING-TONE

Musk wants $2T cut from US budget
Who would hire laid-off bureaucrats?

How much red meat do you eat?
Will government soon limit your intake?

Biden administration outlines AI “guardrails”
Too little too late?
And announces further curbs on Chinese tech

THE ELECTION DISTRACTION

Bezos’s Washington Post won’t endorse Harris
Now they’ve lost 200K readers
USA Today and LA Times also won’t endorse
Bezos says news should not support a candidate
And Americans don’t trust the news

Democrats play dirty in Puerto Rico
It’s all about party self-interest.

MAKING A BETTER YOU

Sitting all day screws up the body.
Here are some helpful stretches

Can you live without your smartphone?
It seems you likely can

Curious about how you’re aging?
Try this simple balance test

HOW ABOUT A BREAK

Hour 43 is peak vacation happiness.
Here’s how to lengthen your bliss

The Middle Ages had its own smartphone
The astrolabe had multiple uses.

The ancient Mesopotamians
Really loved their beer

THE EXTRAORDINARY

The most disruptive tech in human history?
We call it “money.”

Folklore is philosophy
Providing insight on the human experience.

Milk is white.
So why is cheese yellow?

MUSIC BOX

Dua Lipa’s Tiny Desk concert
What a voice!

Taylor Leonhardt
“Poetry”
Poetic lyrics.

Spotify is killing the joy of music.
Here’s how to beat its algorithm

CASTING AROUND THE PODS

JD Vance sits down for 3.5 hours
With Joe Rogan.
Days after Trump did the same

Are we feeding kids the wrong foods?
Are we all eating the wrong foods?

And what about microplastics?
Andrew Huberman on what we do and don’t know.

VIDEOS OF THE WEEK

Juror #2 trailer.
Clint Eastwood is a great director.

Blitz trailer.
A war-time epic from Steve McQueen.

Best all-time movie trailers
And the winner is…

FROM THE HEADHUNTER’S KITCHEN

The miso miracle
How to make more things delicious.

Pasta sauce recipes
That are not tomato based

A salad dressing recipe
That could be your go-to.

THE RANDOMS

In roughly forty years, China miraculously went from desperate poverty to the second largest economy in the world. Are they now starting a new forty year cycle, where a heavy-handed authoritarian system is going to return the country to desperate poverty? 

Lately I’ve been wondering if I’m a Republican, a Democrat or even a Libertarian. Maybe I’m just a Practical-an or a Logic-an.

Look for a post-hurricane economic pop with higher building materials demand, more housing starts and more auto sales to replace ones that were flooded.

By not allowing The Washington Post to endorse a presidential candidate, which would have obviously been Kamala Harris, the paper’s owner Jeff Bezos may have caused the paper to hemorrhage hundreds of thousands of subscribers. But he may have also just rescued the newspaper industry world from its bias death spiral.

Are consumers exhausted with the endless parade of new PC and “smartphone” operating systems that force them to shell out big bucks every few years to keep up with the latest tech advancements? If consumers beg off this hamster wheel of change, will it start a tech wreck?

Energy is an input into every goods production and service providing process. So when the cost of energy rises, it acts as a tax on consumers and a drag on the economy.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

The 30-Year Overnight Success Story
October 25, 2024

The Oopsie Doopsie
October 18, 2024