I have headline fatigue. Every day is another urgency or scare. What will happen due to the chaotic tariff situation? Immigrants locked up in more detention camps, price creep on food and services, doctors dropping out of Medicare, podcast crazies, crude, rude and vulgar behavior, flooding in Texas, heat wave, fires and droughts. Sounds like the sky is falling chicken little. It would appear so. It overwhelms people and leads to complacency.
This year and next are extremely hard for Americans. We just didn’t think we would have all this coming at once. BUT, we did vote a person who reflects our society. So, we will make it through all of this and more until we reach the end of 2028. Things don’t last forever–well death and taxes do–so this won’t last either. We just have to be wiser in our decisions and follow our own personal year energy and use it to help us. I know I am in an 8 year so my activities this year revolve around money and contract decisions. I’m having a new website designed as I write this. I am booking places, have several ideas for the new site and to launch items. I’m engaged more in strengthening my body, more weights and more movement. In short, the world may be convulsing but I am working towards a goal. I suggest it is healthier to work with your personal year and not to get caught up in the headlines. Much of the headlines and raids are to draw you in, scare you and create confusion and uncertainty. I’ve lived long enough to know that all you can do is all you can do. There is a surrender to life after you have done all you can do.
One of my basic rules is to think on paper and get out of my head. Writing it down is the second step to manifestation after thinking about an idea or goal. I could analyze until the cows come home but there comes a day that I have to utilize. Stop telling people you are going to write a book. Write it or drop the conversation. Same with wishy washy wishing and hoping. None of this stops the outside world from going insane and we have all had to adjust to society and change it when we can.
Here are a few ideas to keep in mind:
As harsh as the current deportation, rounding up and seizing of immigrants, public opinion is changing. Americans are fair and as they watch what is happening, they are changing their minds. The latest polls are showing that more Americans want a pathway to citizenship for those who have been in the country for years and contributed to society. They also realize that immigrants are a large portion of our workforce and affect many areas of our lives. Food prices will rise as much our of vegetables and fruits are picked by immigrants. After 2028, we will start to contemplate reasonable immigration laws. First we suffer to learn.
Lack of care for our elderly, a long-standing issue. No additional funds in this area in the new budget yet the country is aging before our eyes and nobody is concerned. This is the new big crisis in America. Our birth rate is low and cannot shoulder the big tsunami coming our way. The older group of Americas will require more services and yet we don’t hear a peep about including it in the budget for the next 10 year. After 2028, we will begin to realize the folly of our ways and begin to address this major hit to the economy.
Our health care system is crying out for improvement and attention. So we cut Medicaid. This is not a solution but we will have to learn this too. More doctor practices are consolidating. More doctors are dropping out of Medicare. More hospitals are being bought by private equity firms and closing. More doctor practices are being bought by private equity firms. This is why your visits are so short. This is one reason doctors are dropping out or fewer individuals are going into medicine. It would be a good idea for Americans to learn what a private equity firm is and how it makes it money. You will choke. Again, Americans will complain and suffer the system but until we get past the 2028 window, and insist on real change to the health care business in America, it will be the black hole.
Scientific research is beginning to suffer as well. Christopher Mims of the Wall St. Journal said “Historically, 3/4’s of international students who earn a Ph.D. in the US have stayed long term. America’s ability to retain these workers–who are highly trained but expensive to educate–has been one key to the country’s pre-eminence in innovation” The National Institutes of Health faced a 40% ($18 billion)reduction in its budget. The National Science Foundation had its budget cut by more than 50%. This wipes out support for 78% of early-career researchers it supports. This is true of NASA where its budget has been cut by 50%.
Christopher Mims goes on to say in the Wall St. Journal that “Several researchers and engineers at top universities and well-known tech companies, intend to leave the US or who have already relocated. All described feelings of anguish about abandoning the US but felt they had little choice: The research they were pursuing was being defunded and the nation’s politics become too threatening.” So more of us will suffer from what could have been. The ripple across the years will have many ramifications as scientists go elsewhere in the world and our companies can’t find the scientists they need. This loss will not become immediate but over time. Understand that so many of our great inventions, cures and other breakthroughs have come through our foreign scientists–Einstein, Amazon, Google and Moderna were all founded by immigrants. Currently Germany is actively courting our researchers, so is China, the UK and India. They are all setting up research funds to woo our graduates and those whose funding have been cut.
We need to get to 2029 to realize what has happened in our Country in areas that deeply affect our lives not scandals and conspiracy theories.
Pay no attention to the silliness of politics at this point. There has been damage in the last 6 months but America will reinvent itself and be better. Much of the way we look at our Constitution and 4 branches of government will be under scrutiny by the voters but not yet. We have to go through this mess. We are in the labor of birth and it isn’t pretty. We had much hate in America during and after the Civil War yet we recovered and went on to prosper and improve. This is a similar period but without Lincoln.
Thank you Diane. As you read more about the US 50 year and 80 year cycles, we can find relief in that we have been here before, survived and actually improved our lives going forward. The next two years are difficult but you will see changes beginning in 2027 and real surprises in 2028. Not easy at all but we have survived much worse and did well the following years. Much will be rebuilt, priorities changed and great medical advances. The US has not “bought the farm”. It just looks that way.
Thanks Cheryl. The main reason this is such a dramatic time for the US it that it has another 50 year cycle in play. This is the ending of the Reagan Era and is running concurrently with the 80 year cycle. The 80 year cycle is an institutional cycle while the 50 year cycle is more social and economic. All our major changes are preceded by a disruptive period to birth the new invention of ourselves. We are simply in the disruptive period. Prior to the 40’s we had the disruptive US depression. We had to get to 1945 to begin the big 80 year change. So here we are. The disruption is right on time with this new administration. This ends after 2028 and we begin a new cycle of great, favorable changes we have only talked about. It takes over in 2030.
Thank you Gail for putting what I have been seeing and feeling into words. It will take many years to recover and I hope I am still here to see it.
One aspect of our changing society will be the impact of AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology. Every 80 years or so we go through a period of epic change. In 1787 the United States Constitution was drafted. 1865 marked the end of the Civil War. 1945 brought about the end of WWII and ushered in the Nuclear Age. 80 years later? Welcome to 2025!And since the first 20-25 years of these cycles are the most innovative and disruptive, we will witness–are now witnessing–the next jump in our evolution. The next three years will be the most dramatic in terms of socio-economic change as the old systems crumble under their own outdated weight. The Labor market is seeing the biggest disruption as thousands are being layed off due to automation. A totally new economic system is needed to address the many issues Gail mentions, but things are going to get worse before they get better. Meanwhile, remember the supreme law of survival: adapt or die. The tsunami is coming sooner than even the Tech experts predicted. Bend with the winds of change.
I am 73 and still here for a reason, so I have decided to be a voice for the positive benefits of AI for Humanity with my new blogsite, thegoodAI.tech (in progress), and help shepherd the new technology towards its ethical and moral usefulness.