ExxonMobil investor says its climate strategy an 'existential' risk: report


Issued on: 26/04/2021

ExxonMobil's strategy in the face of climate change poses an "existential business risk" to the company, according to an activist hedge fund ERIC PIERMONT AFP/File

New York (AFP)

ExxonMobil's strategy in the face of climate change poses an "existential business risk" to the company, according to an activist hedge fund that is a shareholder in the oil giant, a report in the Financial Times said Sunday.

The company, which has been criticized over the last year for both its financial performance and its approach to renewable energy investment, "has no credible plan to protect value in an energy transition," hedge fund Engine No. 1 said in an 80-page investor presentation.

ExxonMobil has said its business would focus on carbon capture and storage technology as a means to counter the emissions that cause global warming.

However, it also plans to continue pumping oil and expects to spend $20 to $25 billion per year between 2022 and 2025 to fuel its growth, mainly through new oil and gas exploration projects.

In the document, which will be distributed to other shareholders, the hedge fund criticized ExxonMobil's "value destruction" and "refusal to accept that fossil fuel demand may decline," according to the Financial Times.

Engine No. 1 is campaigning for the oil company to consider alternative energy more seriously.

The document also claims that Exxon's total emissions, including those from the products it sells, will increase by 2025.

World leaders came together virtually this week at the request of US President Joe Biden for a 40-leader climate summit.

Biden doubled US targets to slash greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change by 2030, with Japan and Canada also raising commitments and the European Union and Britain locking in forceful targets earlier in the week.

The US oil giant, which lost $22 billion in 2020 amid collapsing oil prices, is due to report its first-quarter results on Friday.

PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY

World military spending grows despite pandemic



Issued on: 26/04/2021 - 

The United States increased its military spending for the third year in a row in 2020, after seven years of reductions (pictured: the USS Ronald Reagan carrier strike group) Erwin Jacob V. MICIANO Navy Office of Information/AFP/File

Stockholm (AFP)

Military expenditure worldwide rose to nearly $2 trillion in 2020, defying the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, researchers said Monday.

Global military spending increased by 2.6 percent to $1,981 billion (about 1,650 billion euros) in 2020, when global GDP shrank 4.4 percent, according to a report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Diego Lopes da Silva, one of report's authors, told AFP the development was unexpected.


"Because of the pandemic, one would think military spending would decrease," he said.

"But it's possible to conclude with some certainty that Covid-19 did not have a significant impact on global military spending, in 2020 at least," Lopes da Silva said.

He cautioned however that due to the nature of military spending, it could take time for countries "to adapt to the shock".

The fact that military spending continued to increase in a year with an economic downturn meant the "military burden", or the share of military spending out of total GDP, had increased as well.

The overall share rose from 2.2 percent to 2.4 percent, the largest year-on-year increase since the financial crisis of 2009.

As a result, more NATO members hit the Alliance's guideline target of spending at least two percent of GDP on their military, with 12 countries doing so in 2020 compared to nine in 2019.

- Some Covid effects -

There were however indications the pandemic had affected some countries.

Nations such as Chile and South Korea openly decided to reappropriate military funds in response to the pandemic.

"Other countries, such as Brazil and Russia, did not explicitly say this was reallocated because of the pandemic, but they have spent considerably less than their original budget for 2020," Lopes da Silva said.

Another response, as in Hungary for example, was to increase military spending "as part of a stimulus package in response to the pandemic".

Lopes da Silva noted many countries responded to the 2008-2009 economic crisis by adopting austerity measures, but "this time around it might not be the case".

The world's two biggest spenders by far were the US and China, with Washington accounting for 39 percent of overall expenditure and Beijing for 13 percent.

China's military spending has risen in tandem with its growing economy and has seen an increase for 26 consecutive years, reaching an estimated $252 billion in 2020.

The US also increased its spending for the third year in a row in 2020, after seven years of reductions.

"This reflects growing concerns over perceived threats from strategic competitors such as China and Russia, as well as the Trump administration's drive to bolster what it saw as a depleted US military," Alexandra Marksteiner, another author of the report, said in a statement.

Lopes da Silva however noted that the new "Biden administration has not given any indications that it will reduce military spending."

Nonconformist Youn Yuh-jung: S. Korea's first Oscar-winning actress



Issued on: 26/04/2021 - 

Youn Yuh-Jung is South Korea's first Oscar-winning actress 

Chris Pizzello  POOL/AFP

Seoul (AFP)

Septuagenarian Youn Yuh-jung, South Korea's first Oscar-winning actress, has spent decades portraying nonconformist characters, from a vicious heiress to an ageing prostitute, challenging social norms in both career and life.

Her best supporting actress turn in "Minari", a family drama about Korean immigrants in the US, is relatively more conventional: she portrays a playful grandmother to a mischievous young boy trying to adapt to life in rural Arkansas.

The film, written and directed by Korean-American Lee Issac Chung, earned six nominations overall including for best picture, best actor and a nod for Chung


Youn's win is the second Oscars success for a Korean-language film in as many years, after "Parasite" became the first non-English language best picture winner in 2020.

Youn, whose two grown sons are Asian-Americans, had played down excitement over her chance to make history, telling reporters last month: "This is not a playoff game of actors, placing them in order".

And in her acceptance speech on Sunday, she honored her fellow nominees, exclaiming: "How can I win over Glenn Close?"

She had already collected a best supporting actress Screen Actors Guild award -- the first South Korean actress to do so -- and a Bafta for her performance, along with a string of prizes on the festival circuit.

Based on Chung's own experiences growing up in America in the 1980s, "Minari" follows a Korean-born father who moves his family to a mainly white town in rural Arkansas in pursuit of a better life.

It is the latest of several grandmotherly castings for Youn, and "Parasite" director Bong Joon-ho said the role was "the loveliest character Youn has ever played".

The award honours not just "her performance in 'Minari', but the culmination of an illustrious career working with many of the prominent directors in Korea", said Brian Hu, a film professor at San Diego State University.

"The win should be above all a testament to a career honing her craft."

- 'Scarlet letter' -

Over more than 50 years, Youn has often played provocative and atypical characters who do not conform to the rules of socially conservative Korean society.

Born in 1947 in Kaesong -- now in North Korea -- she made her film debut in groundbreaking director Kim Ki-young's "Woman of Fire" (1971), as the live-in maid to a middle-class household who becomes impregnated by the father of the family.

The thriller was a critical and commercial hit -- it remains a classic of the South's modern cinema -- and Youn paid tribute to the late Kim in her speech on Sunday, saying: "I think he would be very happy if he was still alive."

Despite the success of "Woman of Fire," Youn's first heyday came to an abrupt end in 1975, when she married singer Jo Young-nam and the couple moved to the United States.

Youn returned to South Korea in 1984, divorced Jo three years later, and struggled to resume her acting career to support her two children, at a time when divorce carried heavy stigma for Korean women.

"To be divorced was like having the scarlet letter at the time," Youn told a local magazine in 2009.

"There was this thing that dictated women shouldn't make TV appearances so soon after their divorce."

She countered by accepting every role she was offered, however small.

"I worked very hard. I had this mission of somehow feeding my children. I'd say yes even when I was asked to climb 100 stairs," she said.

Fiercely competitive waters' -

By the 1990s, Youn was a regular in television dramas, often portraying mothers, and later grandmothers.

In 2003, Youn made her film comeback in director Im Sang-soo's "A Good Lawyer's Wife", as an unconventional mother-in-law in a dysfunctional family.

She played a cruel and rich heiress betrayed by her husband in Im's 2012 thriller "Taste of Money", and an ageing haenyeo -- the women of Jeju island who free-dive to collect shellfish -- reunited with her long-lost granddaughter in 2016 drama "Canola".

Also in 2016, she was praised for her role in E J-yong's drama "The Bacchus Lady" as an elderly prostitute -- a veteran of the brothels set up for US soldiers in South Korea -- who becomes involved in the deaths of former clients.

Throughout her career, Youn had to navigate the "fiercely competitive waters" of a film industry "largely focused on young and often male talent" for leading roles, explained Jason Bechervaise, a professor at Korea Soongsil Cyber University in Seoul.

Her Oscar win comes at a fraught time for Asian communities in the United States.

Anti-Asian violence has surged in America this year and four of the eight victims of last month's Atlanta spa shootings were women of Korean descent, three of them in their 60s or 70s.

Film professor Hu told AFP that Youn's award was also a "validation for so many grandmothers in Korean-American households, especially at a time when Asian-American elders are seen as victims rather than victors".

© 2021 AFP

French Resistance and Holocaust documentary film Colette vies for an Oscar

Issued on: 25/04/2021 -

Colette Marin-Catherine during her trip to former German concentration camp Mittelbau-Dora with young French historian Lucie Fouble. © ColetteDocShort

Text by: Stéphanie TROUILLARD

French film Colette is up for the best short documentary award at the Oscars on Sunday night. It tells the story of a woman from Normandy who goes on a sort of pilgrimage to Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp in Germany, where her brother was killed during the Second World War, in the company of a young history student.

Tears are running down the cheeks of Colette Marin-Catherine – who turns 92 on April 25, the day of the Oscars ceremony – as she grips the arm of 19-year-old history student Lucie Fouble. They are at Mittelbau-Dora in central Germany. There is not much to see at the site of this former Nazi concentration camp. But the haunting effects of the past are all too present for these two women.

Marin-Catherine’s brother was murdered during the Second World War – one of the 9,000 French people deported to Dora. Fouble was conducting research on his story. The two of them decided to visit the camp together.

This is the backdrop for the short documentary Colette, which is up for an award in that category at the 2021 Oscars.

Colette Marin-Catherine as a teenage girl. © ColetteDocShort

“No one had any idea it’d become so huge!” Marin-Catherine said from her flat in the Norman city Caen a few days before the ceremony. The Oscar nomination has changed her life completely; the phone keeps ringing, journalists keep interviewing her – and she relishes the opportunity to talk about the documentary and the story it elucidates.

‘He had an iron will’

The documentary project started in 2018. American director Anthony Giacchino and French producer Alice Doyard were looking for heroic figures from the Second World War to make a film about. They came across Marin-Catherine in Normandy. She joined the French Resistance as a secondary school pupil.

Her family was deeply patriotic – and she always kept in mind that her grandfather and two uncles were killed in the First World War; as well as that her great-grandfather died in the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War. “In our family all the men died in wars,” Marin-Catherine put it.

Colette Marin-Catherine and Lucie Fouble near the crematorium at Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp. © ColetteDocShort

As a teenager during the Occupation she monitored the German soldiers’ comings and goings around Caen for the Resistance, noting the licence plates of their vehicles. Her brother Jean-Pierre, meanwhile, distributed leaflets, stashed weapons and helped Resistance members hide.

In 1943, Jean-Pierre was arrested a few months after he garlanded Great War memorials – a symbolic crime in the eyes of the Nazi occupiers. Sentenced to forced labour, he was initially sent to the Struthoff camp in Alsace, then to Gross-Rosen concentration camp in Germany, and finally to Mittelbau-Dora. He died of exhaustion there on March 22, 1945 – 10 days after his 19th birthday.

>> The smile at Auschwitz: Uncovering the story of a young girl in the French Resistance

“He was a good-looking chap – and an athlete to boot,” Marin-Catherine recounted. “He had an iron will as well as great intelligence; he was two years ahead in his studies. It was so terrible to see such a brilliant human being disappear – you can imagine the kind of future he would have had!”

Marin-Catherine vowed never to go to Germany. She didn’t want to take part in what some see as the morbid tourism at the concentration and death camps: “I most certainly wasn’t going to go to Mittelbau-Dora in a coach full of people chatting away to each other.”

But meeting Fouble changed her mind. Giacchino and Doyard put her in touch with this history student – who was working on a biography of Jean-Pierre as part of a book about the French deportees to Mittelbau-Dora. “There was a kind of spontaneous empathy that emerged between her and me; I literally adopted her as my granddaughter,” Marin-Catherine said.

‘I gained a grandmother’

The two filmmakers soon proposed that they take a trip to Mittelbau-Dorn to follow in Jean-Pierre’s footsteps. Marin-Catherine agreed to go with Fouble. “It made me think that it wouldn’t be a tourist trip; it would really be a kind of pilgrimage,” she said. “I never would have done it without this magnificent opportunity the filmmakers gave me. Lucie was a great help to me. Thanks to her, I was able to go and see the exact place where Jean-Pierre died.”

Under the camera’s gaze, the former Resistance member was overwhelmed with emotion as she went to Mittelbau-Dora: “I knew that as soon as I crossed the border that it would change me. It was quite something to hear people speaking German again after all those years; it brought back a lot of memories of the Occupation.”


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The experience also left a deep mark on Fouble. “I’ve had trouble getting over it,” she said. “I remember when we were in the crematorium and Colette told me that was where Jean-Pierre died; she just broke into tears. But it all did so much to help me grow as a human being. In addition to the honour of befriending a former member of the Resistance, I also gained a grandmother.”

“Given my age, it’ll be Lucie who will keep this story’s memory alive,” Marin-Catherine said. “I’ve only got one thing to say to the next generations: Don’t stir up hatred! I see this film as a message of peace.”

She will be watching the Oscars ceremony on television live from her home in Normandy. “I’m 92, so winning an Oscar would hardly change my life. But if I win, I’ll celebrate by doubling my dose of chocolate. Every night, I tend to have a bar – if I win, I’ll start having two!”

Marin-Catherine was especially pleased to note that the Oscars ceremony will take place on her birthday – and Holocaust Remembrance Day: “It’s an exquisite co-incidence!

The promotional poster for the film Colette, nominated for a 2021 Academy Award for best short documentary. © ColetteDocShort

Researchers say the T Rex walked about the same speed as a person

Shane McGlaun - Apr 24, 2021,

One of the most famous dinosaurs is the Tyrannosaurus Rex, more commonly known as the T. Rex. Movies featuring the dinosaur lead us to believe that the dinosaur was very fast, but it appears that isn’t true. A new study recently published by researchers from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam has found that the T. Rex was about as fast as a human when it comes to walking speed.

The researchers believe that the ferocious dinosaur walked at a speed of about three miles per hour. To reach their conclusion, scientists analyzed the hip height, mass, and stride length of the dinosaur and researched its tail and how it may have carried its tail while walking. Researchers found that as the dinosaur walked, its tail would’ve moved up and down while passively suspended in the air.

The researchers used an adult T. Rex specimen named “Trix” and reconstructed the bone and ligament structure of its tail. The walking speed was determined by combining that information with what is known about step frequency and step length. Researchers on the project are clear that their research doesn’t answer all the questions about the T. Rex.

The team points out that gate reconstruction of dinosaurs has multiple inherent uncertainties. The team says it’s important to compare results from different methods to find a converging point. Researchers also point out that while the tail of the T. Rex may have slowed it down when walking, it could’ve helped it go faster when it ran.

Waters says judge in Chauvin trial who criticized her protest remarks was 'angry' and 'frustrated'

By Kelly Mena, CNN
 Sat April 24, 2021

(CNN)Rep. Maxine Waters on Saturday called the judge overseeing former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin's trial in the death of George Floyd "angry" and "frustrated" in response to his recent criticism that her comments at a protest could be grounds for appealing a verdict.

"I think he was angry. I think he may be frustrated with this case and how much world publicity is on it and all of that," Waters told CNN's Jim Acosta on "Newsroom."

Waters, last weekend, ahead of a verdict in the case, had called for protesters to "stay on the street" and "get more confrontational" if Chauvin were acquitted in Floyd's killing, comments immediately seized on by Republicans who claimed that Waters was inciting violence. The California Democrat said she was in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, to show her support for protesters amid ongoing protests over the police killing of Daunte Wright and to also support his family.

After closing arguments in Chauvin's trial the following Monday, Judge Peter Cahill rejected a defense request for a mistrial over the publicity of the case, including TV shows and comments by Waters. Chauvin was eventually found guilty on Tuesday of all three charges against him, including second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The jurors deliberated for more than 10 hours over two days before coming to their decision.


"I talked with a lot of legal scholars and lawyers and of course he was way off track. He knows that in fact, the jurors were not in the room. The jurors had an oath not to look at television, not to read the newspapers, not to engage with people on this. So he knows that there was no interference with the jurors," added Waters defending her comments.
"[T]o say that I'm going to cause an appeal really is not credible. And whether or not they have an appeal, even if they mention my name, like the judge says, my comments don't matter anyway," Waters noted.

Congresswoman says she receives death threats often

The congresswoman, pressed by Acosta on her recent op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, then went on to say that she receives death threats often.

In the piece, Waters says: "Now, because of who I am, the right wing and members of Congress who subscribe to the views of groups like QAnon, the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys and the KKK have targeted me."

When asked whether she believes the Republican members of Congress referenced in her piece are non-violent, Waters responded with: "Well no, what is very interesting is I am threatened to be killed very often and so we are reporting to the Capitol Police and they are investigating all these attempts to kill me -- not attempts, but people who are calling in saying that they are going to kill me."

CNN has reached out to the US Capitol Police for comment.

Additionally, in the op-ed the congresswoman defends herself as being "nonviolent" and slams critics of her protest remarks calling it a "blatant distortion of the truth." She defended herself again on Saturday.

"So when you talk about violence, and you look at them and their alignment and you look at what happened January 6 when the domestic terrorists -- who are their friends -- broke into our Capitol and beat up police officers and caused one police death, and others to be harmed ... then I think people whether they like me or not will know their arguments are not credible," Water said.

 India: Rich Flee on Private Jets As COVID-19 Cases Hits Global Record  

REMINDS ME OF

  

PM Modi says India shaken by coronavirus 'storm', US readies help
25 April 2021

India set a new global record of the most number of Covid-19 infections in a day, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday urged all citizens to be vaccinated and exercise caution, saying the "storm" of infections had shaken the country.

In this picture taken on April 23, 2021, relatives wait next to a Covid-19 coronavirus patient laying on a stretcher in a hospital complex for admission in New Delhi. Photo: AFP

The United States said it was deeply concerned by the massive surge in coronavirus cases in India and was racing to send aid.

India's number of cases surged by 349,691 in the past 24 hours, the fourth straight day of record peaks, and hospitals in Delhi and across the country are turning away patients after running out of medical oxygen and beds.

"We were confident, our spirits were up after successfully tackling the first wave, but this storm has shaken the nation," Modi said in a radio address.

Modi's government has faced criticism that it let its guard down, allowed big religious and political gatherings to take place when India's cases plummeted to below 10,000 a day and did not plan on building up the healthcare systems.

Hospitals and doctors have put out urgent notices that they were unable to cope with the rush of patients.

People were arranging stretchers and oxygen cylinders outside hospitals as they desperately pleaded for authorities to take patients in, Reuters photographers said.

"Every day, it's the same situation, we are left with two hours of oxygen, we only get assurances from the authorities," one doctor said on television.

Outside a Sikh temple in Ghaziabad city on the outskirts of Delhi the street resembled an emergency ward of a hospital, but cramed with cars carrying Covid-19 patients gasping for breath as they were hooked up to hand held oxygen tanks.

Delhi's Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal extended a lockdown in the capital that was due to end on Monday for a week to try and stem the transmission of the virus which is killing one person every four minutes.

"A lockdown was the last weapon we had to deal with the coronavirus but with cases rising so quickly we had to use this weapon," he said.

A Covid19 coronavirus patient is helped by her relatives as she leaves a hospital in New Delhi on April 24. Photo: AFP

India's total tally of infections stands at 16.96 million and deaths 192,311 after 2767 more died overnight, health ministry data showed.

In the last month alone, daily cases have gone up eight times and deaths by 10 times. Health experts say the death count is probably far higher.

The country of 1.3 billion people is on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe, Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, warned in an op-ed published Saturday in the Washington Post.

"Our hearts go out to the Indian people in the midst of the horrific Covid-19 outbreak," US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on Twitter.

"We are working closely with our partners in the Indian government, and we will rapidly deploy additional support to the people of India and India's health care heroes."

The United States has faced criticism in India for its export controls on raw materials for vaccines put in place via the Defense Production Act and an associated export embargo in February.

The Serum Institute of India (SII), the world's biggest vaccine maker, this month urged US President Joe Biden to lift the embargo on US exports of raw materials that is hurting its production of AstraZeneca shots.

Others such as US Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi urged the Biden administration to release unused vaccines to India.

"When people in India and elsewhere desperately need help, we can't let vaccines sit in a warehouse, we need to get them where they'll save lives," he said.

India's surge is expected to peak in mid-May with the daily count of infections reaching half a million, the Indian Express said citing an internal government assessment.

Covid-task force leader V.K. Paul made the presentation during a meeting with Modi and state chief ministers and said that the health infrastructure in heavily populated states is not adequate enough to cope, according to the newspaper.

Paul did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

- Reuters

China offers to help India tackle Covid-19 outbreak after US vaccine snub

APRIL 25, 2021

ByRACHEL ZHANGSOUTH CHINA MORNING POST

A funeral service is held in New Delhi as the number of cases in the country continues to rise. Photo: Reuters

CHINA - China has offered to help India battle its Covid-19 outbreak after the United States declined a request to lift a ban on exporting vaccine raw materials.

The olive branch from the Chinese foreign ministry comes as tensions between the two nations continue to run high along their disputed border .More from AsiaOneRead the condensed version of this story, and other top stories with NewsLite.

“The Chinese government and people firmly support the Indian government and people in fighting the coronavirus. China is ready to provide support and help according to India’s needs, and is in communication with the Indian side on this,” foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Friday.

India is currently battling the world’s highest number of cases , with a record 346,786 new cases reported on Saturday, and its hospital system is on the edge of collapse due to shortages of intensive care beds, medical supplies and oxygen.

India is also running low on vaccines and has asked the US to lift an export ban on the raw materials needed to make them, but Washington declined saying it had a responsibility to look after the American people first.

“It is, of course, not only in our interest to see Americans vaccinated, it’s in the interests of the rest of the world to see Americans vaccinated,” said the US State Department spokesman Ned Price on Thursday.


But the Chinese offer to help comes despite the ongoing tensions along their disputed border following a deadly clash last summer and with little apparent progress in the most recent round of talks between the two countries’ militaries.

“India’s supplies of raw materials for vaccine production from the US and Europe are currently restricted. It desperately needs other countries’ help with the pandemic,” said Niu Haibin, deputy director of the Institute for Foreign Policy Studies at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies.

“This is also an opportunity for both sides to mend bilateral relations”.

China has consistently denied that it is using offers to supply other countries with vaccines to extend its geopolitical influence.

However, the United States, India, Australia and Japan – the so-called Quad – recently promised to deliver a billion doses of Covid-19 throughout the Indo-Pacific by the end of next year in a move that was widely seen as an effort to counter Chinese in the region.

Niu said China is not deliberately using the pandemic for diplomatic purposes, but cooperation with other nations would increase its influence.

Raj Verma, an associate professor of international relations at Huaqiao University in Fujian, said that because Chinese vaccines have not been approved for use in India, people there would be reluctant to receive them.

But he said there were other ways China could help.

“India is making efforts to garner oxygen cylinders from across the globe,” he said. “However, the overall bilateral relationship will still be tense and the prevailing mistrust on both sides will continue”.

Li Hongmei, a research fellow at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, said: “China’s statement shows that it does not link the border issue closely with overall relations with India, and that China expects bilateral relations can be improved.

“I think China is willing to help India by substantial actions, rather than making empty gestures.”

BUT WHAT DID NOSTRODAMUS SAY?!

A book published almost 25 years ago predicted that the 'Next New Deal' would follow a period of great social unrest in 2020 - and that millennials would take the reins after decades of boomer rule

hhoffower@businessinsider.com (Hillary Hoffower,Ben Winc

© Provided by Business Insider Could President Joe Biden be the "gray champion" of the Fourth Turning? Pool/Getty Images

A generational theory written in 1997 predicted America would see the climax of a crisis in 2020.

As the climax turned toward resolution, a "Next New Deal" would reshape the economy and give millennials a brighter future.

A "gray champion" would usher in this new economic zeitgeist. Could that be Biden?

America is currently in the midst of a millennial vs. boomer showdown - and a "gray champion" is arriving to usher in the "Next New Deal."

So says an eerie generational theory known as the Fourth Turning, which was coined in 1997 by Neil Howe and William Strauss in an eponymous book. The theory proposes that America sees a "turning" every 20 years as one generation displaces another, and that this dynamic between the two creates a crisis every 80 years.

Each crisis is marked by four stages: a catalyst event that sets the wheels in motion; a regeneracy in which people stop tolerating weakening institutions and splintering culture; a climax that "shakes society to its roots," transforms institutions, and redirects purpose; and a resolution that sees the economy entirely restructured for a new set of circumstances.

It's an outlandish theory and the book has also been widely criticized for its lack of scientific support and vague predictions. But it's also resonated among conservative and liberal leaders alike, and bears uncanny parallels to American history.

The last fourth turnings, Howe and Strauss argued, culminated in World War II, the Civil War, and the American Revolution. They wrote that the next crisis-era would involve millennials and boomers fighting over the shape of the world to come, with the catalyst event beginning around 2005, and the climax around 2020, with a resolution by 2026.

© Leah Millis/Reuters Political riots, social unrest, and a pandemic resemble the climax depicted in "The Fourth Turning." Leah Millis/Reuters

The 2008 financial crisis can be seen as the catalyst they mentioned, while the pandemic, social unrest, and riots of 2020 and early 2021 sound a lot like the climax. During this climax, they wrote, the economy could "reach a trough that may look to be the start of the depression," and indeed, the stock-market crash of 2020 was the sharpest and deepest since at least the 1930s. The economy will recover, per the theory, but it will fundamentally change after this period.

Enter the Biden administration, whose ambitious social programs and big spending have triggered comparisons to FDR's New Deal. Some leading political experts agree that this era is historic and climactic. For instance, Doug Sosnik, senior adviser to the Brunswick Group, and political director for former President Bill Clinton, released a presentation in April pronouncing that not only is America going through its biggest transformation since the industrial revolution of the 19th century, but "the current period of turmoil and chaos that began in the early 2000s will likely continue throughout this decade."

The challenge, Sosnik wrote, will be the transition from a 20th-century top-down industrial economy to a 21st-century digital and global one. In other words, this period could be a "great gate of history," just as Strauss and Howe wrote.
Forgoing Obama-era rules for a bolder approach

The Fourth Turning predicts the agenda of the Next New Deal will center around young adults, with boomers imposing a "new duty of compulsory service" and millennials recognizing this as a path to public achievement. The government's economic role, per the theory, will shift away from amenities and past promises such as elder care and debt service and toward spending on survival and future promises, such as defense and public works.

President Joe Biden signaled early on that he wouldn't bow to the worries over the national debt that dominated much of the last 20 years (ie, the third turning). The president unveiled a $1.9 trillion stimulus package one week before his inauguration, urging Congress to pass another round of relief checks, extend bolstered unemployment benefits, and fund the distribution of coronavirus vaccines.

© Provided by Business Insider President Joe Biden signs three documents including an Inauguration declaration, cabinet nominations and sub-cabinet nominations on January 20, 2021. JIM LO SCALZO/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

For the first time in a generation, economists and consumers alike have since become worried about inflation, and whether such a large boost was even needed as vaccines started to reach Americans' arms.

Where the Obama administration shrank its proposal to appease Republicans and moderate Democrats, Biden stuck with his plan to "go big" and, for the time being, ignore its impact on the government debt.

"A new resolve about urgent public goals crowds out qualms about questionable public means," Strauss and Howe wrote. "Instead of coaxing people with promises of minimal sacrifice, they summon them with warnings of maximal sacrifice."

This could only be the beginning of the Biden-led resolution. For his second act, could we meet the "Gray Champion?"

Spending big on a new age of American infrastructure

The authors predicted that a key component of the Next New Deal would be a new era for infrastructure: "Fourth Turning America will begin to lay out the next saeculum's infrastructure grid - some higher-tech facsimile of turnpikes, railroads, or highways. Through the Fourth Turning, the old order will die, but only after having produced the seed containing the new civic order within it."

That's exactly what Biden is proposing, arguing explicitly in the rollout of his $2.3 trillion package that now is the time to rethink infrastructure for the first time in decades. It includes funds for nationwide broadband and green energy projects as well as more "traditional" infrastructure such as rebuilding roads and bridges.

"With the 1936 Rural Electrification Act, the federal government made a historic investment in bringing electricity to nearly every home and farm in America, and millions of families and our economy reaped the benefits," reads a White House fact sheet on the plan. "Broadband internet is the new electricity."

"It's big, yes. It's bold, yes. And we can get it done," Biden said as he unveiled the package. "The divisions of the moment shouldn't stop us from doing the right thing for the future." He also called it a "once-in-a-generation investment in America."

That isn't all the administration has on the docket. The president is expected to reveal another $1.5 trillion in spending before he addresses a joint session of Congress on April 28. The plan is set to include funds for child care, universal pre-K, and paid family and medical leave.

These two packages look a lot like the spending on "public works" and "future promises" that Howe and Strauss predicted would make up the Next New Deal, in some ways they even surpass FDR's New Deal programs. Leonard Burman, a professor of behavioral economics at Syracuse University's Maxwell School, told Insider's Juliana Kaplan that compared to FDR, the country has "never done" a package the size of Biden's proposals. Unlike Biden, he said FDR "spent much less than would have been appropriate for the size of the economic downturn at that point."

© Provided by Business Insider Biden has framed his American Job Plan as a reimagining of US infrastructure. Alex Wong/Getty Images

Taken together, Biden's proposals place the country on the brink of a new policy regime. The fierce debate over this new regime is where the millennial versus boomer conflict reaches its fever pitch.

"In the Fourth Turning, boomers are likely to occupy the vortex of a downward economic spiral," the authors wrote, as "the truth will dawn on old boomers that the money simply won't be there to support their accustomed consumption." But it predicted that millennials will come out of this with a brighter future, as they come to embody a "new American mainstream."

Helping the millennials along the way will be a particular figure, Howe and Strauss wrote.

Eight or nine decades after his last appearance in a similar gate of history, the coauthors predicted, America will be visited by "the figure of an ancient man," one who combines aspects of "the leader and the saint" to lead the way toward resolution. They called that character the Gray Champion, and said he would be the one to usher in a new economic zeitgeist.

The 78-year-old Biden, who became America's oldest president when he was elected in 2020, has several of these attributes, including devout Catholic faith, a biography marked by perseverance through several personal tragedies, and a distinct sense of empathy in his public remarks. And when he introduced his infrastructure plan last month, he promised a new economic "paradigm" for the country. This could just be the beginning.

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