Generational Dynamics Forum - New Site

by **John** » Sun Feb 05, 2012 9:58 pm

I've written in the past about how Gen-Xers have a loyalty to each
other, and even refuse to investigate and prosecute other Gen-Xers for
crimes.

I just want to say that I feel absolutely no similar loyalty to
Boomers. I don't really care whether they were active or passive
participants in the fraud. As far as I'm concerned we can put them in
jail and throw away the key. And if Blankfein believes that his
company's fraud is "God's work," then find a nice religious jail to
throw him into, so he can continue with God's work.

John

by **Marc** » Sun Feb 05, 2012 9:04 pm

Hi, Higgie,

Funny, for a long time, I too have thought about the mythical character Gordon Gekko's famous phrase "Greed is good" in the movie Wall Street — and how it was uttered before I and the rest of the "Reagan Youth" could do much within the banks and corporations. I'm going to postulate a hybrid theory that is admittedly a re-hashing of what I've mentioned before, but which takes both your and John's ideas into account: I do feel, as a Gen-X'er, that we were heavily raised (as a group) to be frequently amoral and badassed. What so frequently characterized our growing up was a dearth of love and a dearth of structure, facilitated by grownups (that is, as we X'ers grew up) who so often didn't really care holistically about our welfare. That sort of thing surely left a mark.

However, with the Gordon Gekkos of the world who were off "doing their thing" by the mid-1980s, what I feel you had going on is the existence of many Boomer, many Silent, and probably even some G.I. generational cohorts who, having been "extra liberated" by the ushering in of the Third Turning, were willing and able to act in greedy or amoral ways, even though the coming-of-age Generation-X'ers were being perfectly cultivated for the task. Thus, if you take the way that Gen-X'ers were raised, and couple it with what they experienced as they came of age (e.g., "shareholder value," "mean and lean," "just-in-time" supplier/HR networks, mergers and acquisitions and IPOs galore, etc.), you have the coming together of "Nomad nurturing" with "Third Turning behavioral shaping" to produce particularly venal Nomads in many cases. But yes, I would have to essentially agree with you, Higgie, that that "Third Turning ethos" which was heavily orchestrated by non–Gen X'ers helped to shape Gen-X venality and fraud as Gen-X'ers gained significant positions within organizations. Venal as they could also be at times, Boomers and Silents, as John mentioned, generally couldn't have created super-complex financial derivatives and such, whereas the extra-venal and frequently-more-analytical Gen-X'ers could frequently do so. But, all in all, there is ample blame to go around, I do feel, for who was the enabling factor in the rampant financial fraud that has recently occurred. Thanks for sharing your valuable perspective. —Best regards, Marc

by **Higgenbotham** » Sun Feb 05, 2012 6:59 pm

John wrote:You and I have some specific disagreements about where to place the
blame. If I can re-phrase your argument, I understand you to be
claiming that the Boomer managers created an environment to encourage
fraud. I strongly disagree with that claim.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying, except that I would just say "Boomers" generally. It started back in the 1980's and a good example of creating the environment for the Nomads to fill those shoes was with the movie "Wall Street" where Michael Douglas, I believe, is quoted over and over again in advertisements saying "Greed is good" with great gusto. Once the environment was created through endless propaganda that greed and ripping people off were the correct way to do things, then the Nomads, who were acclimated to that kind of thinking having been inculcated by the Boomer propaganda from an early age, were best conditioned and suited to commit those frauds and they stepped into the fraud machine seamlessly and executed the worst of the frauds.

John wrote: I don't think of Blankfein as a "Mastermind and sponsor of financial
frauds" at all. I see Blankfein as a complete moron who didn't want
to see what was going on because he was making too much money, and who
allowed Gen-X criminals to lead him by the nose. I view Blankfein to
be much more passive, with the active participants being the Gen-Xers
who viewed selling fraudulent securities to Boomer investors to be
justice. But I also blame Blankfein and the other Boomer managers for
purposely closing their eyes to what was going on.

The Boomers don't dirty themselves too much with the details because they want to have "plausible deniability" and for there to be no paper trail that leads directly to them. As a result, they really can't know too much, as that's the modus operandi to achieve plausible deniability.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plausible_deniability

From a previous post I made:

"During the grievance meeting, I handed information to the top people in the agency, information they did not want. They left the information on the table and got up and walked out of the meeting. As they left, I told them that I would e-mail copies of the information. They ordered me not to."

The Boomers will get up and walk out of a meeting and use cover of "insubordination" in order to achieve "plausible deniability" that they were involved in wrongdoing.

by **John** » Sun Feb 05, 2012 6:40 pm

Higgenbotham wrote: > I don't see that clearly pointed out in your book. As Blankfein
> and other Prophets were the Masterminds and sponsors of the
> financial frauds, so were Henry Ford and other Prophets the
> Masterminds and sponsors of Hitler. It couldn't have happened
> without the Prophets, and without the disaffected Nomad youth who
> ran their enterprises. I think the statement by the Nazi leaders
> at the Nuremberg trials is most revealing of that dynamic. Henry
> Ford, who was not aligned with the Jews, was publishing
> anit-Semitic material long before the Nomads were of the age to
> come to power and Blankfein and other Prophets were cranking up
> the fraud machine long before the Nomads were ready to fill those
> shoes. The machine was waiting and ready for the "right people" to
> "execute" in both instances.

Well, Bernie Madoff was defrauding people long before the Gen-Xers
came to power in middle management.

You and I have some specific disagreements about where to place the
blame. If I can re-phrase your argument, I understand you to be
claiming that the Boomer managers created an environment to encourage
fraud. I strongly disagree with that claim.

I don't think of Blankfein as a "Mastermind and sponsor of financial
frauds" at all. I see Blankfein as a complete moron who didn't want
to see what was going on because he was making too much money, and who
allowed Gen-X criminals to lead him by the nose. I view Blankfein to
be much more passive, with the active participants being the Gen-Xers
who viewed selling fraudulent securities to Boomer investors to be
justice. But I also blame Blankfein and the other Boomer managers for
purposely closing their eyes to what was going on.

In fact, I consider the "God's work" remark to be the most idiotic of
all, because it signaled to me that he still didn't know what was
going on, and still believed that his company was the innocent victim
of circumstances. What I'm saying, that he apparently doesn't
understand, and that you apparently disagree with, was that his
employees purposely launched the criminal fraud to screw Boomers,
including Blankfein, after they had lost their money in the Nasdaq
crash.

John

by **Higgenbotham** » Sun Feb 05, 2012 6:15 pm

John wrote:
Higgie wrote: > Henry Ford was of the Prophet archetype, born in 1863. ...

> Years ago, I read a book entitled "Henry Ford and the Jews" and
> apparently there's a newer book with that same title, but I don't
> think it is the same book. Ford's assistant was involved in
> either writing or verifying the contents of the book, as I recall.
> I have found a link to a paper which contains much of this same
> information. It's my recollection that Henry Ford was stated in
> this book, according to his assistant, to have financed Hitler.

> To make the claim that the Prophet generation at that time was
> aligned with the Jews and separate from Hitler, who was a Nomad,
> is not an accurate view of history.

> http://history.hanover.edu/hhr/99/hhr99_2.html
I don't understand what point you're making. Lloyd Blankfein is in
the Prophet archetype, and he testified before Congress that the
massive fraud perpetrated by his employees was "God's Work." If Henry
Ford also thought that the Holocaust was "God's Work," then Blankfein
is in good company. But it doesn't change the final conclusions about
the Gen-X culture, or the Lost Generation culture.

John

I don't see that clearly pointed out in your book. As Blankfein and other Prophets were the Masterminds and sponsors of the financial frauds, so were Henry Ford and other Prophets the Masterminds and sponsors of Hitler. It couldn't have happened without the Prophets, and without the disaffected Nomad youth who ran their enterprises. I think the statement by the Nazi leaders at the Nuremberg trials is most revealing of that dynamic. Henry Ford, who was not aligned with the Jews (your book said Prophets are aligned with Jews), was publishing anti-Semitic material in 1915 long before the Nomads were of the age to come to power and Blankfein and other Prophets were cranking up the fraud machine circa 1985 long before the Nomads were ready to fill those shoes. The machine was waiting and ready for the "right people" to "execute" in both instances.

by **John** » Sun Feb 05, 2012 5:35 pm

Higgie wrote: > Henry Ford was of the Prophet archetype, born in 1863. ...

> Years ago, I read a book entitled "Henry Ford and the Jews" and
> apparently there's a newer book with that same title, but I don't
> think it is the same book. Ford's assistant was involved in
> either writing or verifying the contents of the book, as I recall.
> I have found a link to a paper which contains much of this same
> information. It's my recollection that Henry Ford was stated in
> this book, according to his assistant, to have financed Hitler.

> To make the claim that the Prophet generation at that time was
> aligned with the Jews and separate from Hitler, who was a Nomad,
> is not an accurate view of history.

> http://history.hanover.edu/hhr/99/hhr99_2.html

I don't understand what point you're making. Lloyd Blankfein is in
the Prophet archetype, and he testified before Congress that the
massive fraud perpetrated by his employees was "God's Work." If Henry
Ford also thought that the Holocaust was "God's Work," then Blankfein
is in good company. But it doesn't change the final conclusions about
the Gen-X culture, or the Lost Generation culture.

John

by **Higgie** » Sun Feb 05, 2012 5:14 pm

Years ago, I read a book entitled "Henry Ford and the Jews" and apparently there's a newer book with that same title, but I don't think it is the same book. Ford's assistant was involved in either writing or verifying the contents of the book, as I recall. I have found a link to a paper which contains much of this same information. It's my recollection that Henry Ford was stated in this book, according to his assistant, to have financed Hitler.

To make the claim that the Prophet generation at that time was aligned with the Jews and separate from Hitler, who was a Nomad, is not an accurate view of history.

http://history.hanover.edu/hhr/99/hhr99_2.html

by **Higgie** » Sun Feb 05, 2012 4:32 pm

Henry Ford was of the Prophet archetype, born in 1863.

The International Jew is a four volume set of booklets or pamphlets originally published and distributed in the early 1920s by Henry Ford, an American industrialist and automobile manufacturer.

It is to be distinguished from The International Jew: The World's Problem which was the headline in The Dearborn Independent and is the name of a collection of articles serialized in The Dearborn Independent, a newspaper owned by Ford.

At the Nuremberg Trials, Baldur von Schirach mentioned that The International Jew made a deep impression on him and his friends in their youth and influenced them in becoming antisemitic. He said: "... we saw in Henry Ford the representative of success, also the exponent of a progressive social policy. In the poverty-stricken and wretched Germany of the time, youth looked toward America, and apart from the great benefactor, Herbert Hoover, it was Henry Ford who to us represented America."[2] In 1922, the New York Times reported that Adolf Hitler's office contained a large picture of Ford.[3] A well-thumbed copy of the International Jew was found in his library.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_International_Jew

by **Trevor** » Sun Feb 05, 2012 2:43 am

Interesting idea, but I think part of it is also convenience. Jews generally aren't a large minority in any given country, meaning that it's easy to blame them when things go badly. Even under ideal circumstances, there is plenty of prejudice against the Jewish community, and when things fall apart, prejudice can turn into outright hatred very quickly. In this country, Jews are the best off financially and have the highest rates of college education. Even today, there's a lot of prejudice against them, as we've seen with these "Jews Control Wall Street" claims in some of these protests.

As for Iraq, for all the claims about the country descending into civil war, they're looking more stable than much of the Middle East right now. We've had a real civil war in Libya, Egypt has a possibility of being next, Assad is slaughtering protestors right and left, giving an indication that the older generation will probably win that conflict. Compared to that, Iraq doesn't seem so terrible.

by **Marc** » Sun Feb 05, 2012 2:13 am

Very interesting thesis regarding your proposed key reason for the Holocaust and repeated Jewish persecution throughout history, John. I can see how the Prophet/Nomad dynamic that has occurred repeatedly in history, and how you feel that Jews tend to gravitate and lead the Prophet archetypes when they come of age and later on, has given antisemitic persecution a key thrust. With the Holocaust, I do kindly think that the Nazi propaganda machine (which aided "herding behavior" and "boiling-frog behavior"), and allied tools of control and terror unleashed by the Nazis, gave the Holocaust a powerful thrust, although you probably feel that way, too.

I am curious, though: When you feel that the Jews have naturally aligned themselves repeatedly with Prophet generations, are you essentially just referring to Jewish Prophet and Jewish Artist archetypes doing such aligning, or do you also feel that Jewish Civic archetypes tend to align themselves with Prophet generations as well? (I'm assuming that Jewish Nomad archetypes, assuming that they do indeed exist, might not be as relevant here.)

Thanks again for the cogent insights. —Best regards, Marc

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