Americas has had great freedom and prosperity, and its behavior abroad has been, if not entirely humane, certainly better than most. I suspect history will give us a B-; maybe even an A-, if she grades on the curve.

But we are also spoiled, and we have been so blessed by history, geography and the wisdom of our founders that we sometimes think we are entitled to our good fortune. But the world has changed, its starting to get overcrowded and dirty, and the neighborhood is rougher than it used to be. And through no fault of our own, we’re not as rich as we used to be, and sooner or later we will have to move to a smaller house, and maybe get a second job, no matter how hard we work or how scrupulously we follow the rules. The malaise and angst reflected by the statistics above is, in my opinion, the result of the realization that the arc has peaked, that we have reached some kind of inflection point. No, it need not be the end of the world, we’re still better off than most of the rest of the planet, and we still are blessed with resources. But I believe we have peaked, and it will never again be how it once was, or even how we thought it might be. Things are getting hard, and the well-to-do aren’t willing to give up anything to make it easier on the rest of us. They could afford to share the wealth at one time, now they’re not so willing, they’re scared too. Some of us will inevitably fall short, and we can no longer feel confident our children will do better than we did. In fact, some of us will not do as well as we once did.

The rest of the world is catching up, our advantages of an untouched continent and a world-war devastated competition overseas have evaporated. We can’t all live in a ranch house in the suburbs, and drive a flashy car to our cushy office necktie job in the city. And our kids have pretty much given up on that. The high paying industrial union jobs are gone, and lets face it, we can’t all be entrepreneurs, or application developers, or real estate investment counselors. Education, benefits, pensions, the guaranteed raises and promotions are no longer going to be what everyone can count on. Its going to get harder and harder for more and more of us. It won’t be like it was, and that is finally starting to sink in.

I think the youngsters have figured this out, and the old farts like me saw it coming, and through no skill or smarts on our part we managed to get lucky. But we were the last generation. We were lucky that when things were starting to sour we were still young and sharp and we could make adjustments. When things went bad we had resources and confidence. Those in between are just starting to realize they have missed the peak, the wave broke and they missed it. That explains those curves in those graphs, and why that age group is so stressed.

The future need not be a disaster, but it will be a disappointment.

And…we most certainly deserve every kick in the chops that we’ve brought upon ourselves.

Some only survive by focussing their hatred on scapegoats, and indulging in conspiracy theories, apocalyptic religions or by following demagogues. We’ve seen the rage, and the denials, right here on the Zone. Or they take their guns and rush out seeking their vengeance on complete strangers. SF writer John Brunner predicted this decades ago, he called them “muckers” (Stand on Zanzibar).

check this out…these are self-inflicted deaths.

https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2015/11/Screen_Shot_2015_11_03_at_12.01.18_PM/955d93216.png