Generational theory tells us that there are four stages to the cycle of history: The High, The Awakening, The Unraveling and The Crisis. We are in The Crisis phase now and this can be further divided into events that Neil Howe describes in a recent post as the catalyst, the regeneracy, the climax and the resolution. [...]

I have never been much of a historian, but I picked up “The Plot Against the President” at the library recently and I have really been enjoying it. According to the theories of Strauss and Howe, we are in a period that is very similar to the early stages of the Great Depression. This period, [...]

This is from Neil Howe at Lifecourse.com:   We ran these number per Census as of July of this year for everyone age 18+.  They are cut exactly according to our birthyear boundaries: , 4.5 million , 26.2 million , 65.6 million , 88.5 million 18+, 52.0 million Total: 236.8 million. Subtract this from the [...]

The University of Michigan has apparently been surveying a large group of for some time and just released a report on their findings. Here is the blurb from the site: For more than two decades, a loyal group of young Americans have participated in a national study to allow the nation to understand the thinking [...]

An interesting interview with Neil Howe in The Atlantic. I particularly like the last answer: Will Millennials become skeptical of government over time? HOWE: When they say they are pro-government, they don’t mean that they like what Congress is doing. It means they think there are great things that could be done to bring America [...]

This post on Cracked.com is both insightful and hilarious. It describes, with great accuracy, the reasons why , and view the Occupy movement very differently. It also gives some perspective on the “entitled” label often given to Millennials.

If you are new to generational research, here are a few starting points for understanding how the generational cycles work. Webinars The Cycle of Generations – 10 minutes <–The best place to start. Understanding The Cycle of Generations – 25 minutes. Understanding Generational Attitudes – 23 minutes Charts Recent Generations and Turnings Chart – (post [...]

This is an interesting article about the current state of Generation X: Study says Generation X is balanced and happy Not sure if it will last, but perhaps all the realization that we have survived so far is enough to keep Gen X’ers pretty satisfied at this point…

I have been thinking quite a bit about the “Arab Spring” recently. Back in 2007 our family spent three weeks traveling around Egypt (Cairo, Alexandria, the White Desert, Luxor and Hagarda) and we feel an affinity for the area because of our time there. Strauss and Howe have pointed out that the Arab world (and [...]

Although this recent article in the NY Times describes it as a collision between “Young and Old” I believe the Medicare debate is going to be about vs. . X’ers probably don’t expect to get much out of Social Security or Medicare (even though we will probably be the biggest contributors to the programs in [...]