3 historical epochs

Interestingly enough, during my first 2 trips to the US, important events took place which changed the world.

I was in the US in winter of 89/90. The Cold War was still going on when I left for the US. By the time I came back, East Germany fell. Poland fell. Czechoslovakia fell. Hungary fell. Yugoslavia fell. Bulgaria and Romania would soon follow. It was a crazy time. History is already judging this to be an epoch, which is to generally say, before this takes place, the world operates on one set of rules. After this even takes place, a lot of the rules have changed. Cold war is over, globalisation is in full gear.

During my first semester in the US, Al Qaeda bombed the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. Security procedures in the embassy in Singapore was upgraded from anal to super anal. At the start of my last year in the US, 9/11 took place. The age of terror had begun.

During my third trip to the US, there was not much that was new, except that Obama clinched the nomination. I guess what is going on in the USA right now is pretty earth shattering, except that all your sub prime problems only blew up while I was back in Singapore. It seems almost certain that Obama will be the next president. I guess that's historical enough - he will be the first US president who is not a white man. (He's half white but I guess the one drop rule means that he's black.)

In the years to come, Americans will look at 2008 the way that they looked at 1973 - the end of the good times. Or the way we looked at 1997.

1973 was a very bad year for the US - Richard Nixon about to be impeached. The Arabs ganged up to drive the oil prices through the roof (but nothing like US$100 a barrel). US was losing in Vietnam. It was the start of a few more bad years - the economy would recover only 10 years later.

2008 was the year sub prime castrated the credit system and caused a few bank failures. US is about to lose Afghanistan (although things are finally looking up in Iraq). Will the US have a few more bad years for the economy? I suspect so. The size of the US debt will kill it. Their social security systems are going bankrupt just at the point when the baby boomers are growing old. When the dust settles, the US will not be the only superpower in the world - there will be another 2, in China and the EU. Possibly India will be another superpower. It will stop being an exceptional country.

I have heard it being said a few times by different people: we are living in very interesting times. But the phrase - "may you live in interesting times" is meant to be a curse.

Do you know something? The show is not over yet. This is hardly the tip of the iceberg. There are more interesting things lined up for us in the coming decades.

1. Inflation is caused by the number of middle class people in the world expanding by a large number over the last 10 years. People in the former third world countries who are for the first time beginning to enjoy a decent standard of living are bidding up all the prices of raw materials / commodities. This will place a strain on the economy like never before. It is possible that sometime during this century, a famine on the same scale as the "great leap forward" famine will take place.

2. All the shit that we've done to the environment over the last 50-100 years will come and bite us in the back. There will be climate change, sea levels rising, plenty of natural disasters to worry about. You will probably never be able to get yourself insured at a decent price anymore.

3. A lot of the world will be more middle class than ever before. Which is nice in a way and not so nice in others (see point 1).

Hot, flat and crowded. A more exciting world. A more messy world.