GenX Turns Fifty

Long time no see. It seems the whole world is coming apart (and it is). In the next series of blog posts, I will attempt to address multiple layers of history and social / economic cycles to explain what’s happening in our world, focused on the waves of change and where we might be going.

Let’s go back to 1944 – way before any of us Gen Xers were born. Coming out of WWII, we had a big problem on how we were going to counter the Soviet Union. Solution? Create a global financial network and promise open trade and military protections. Bretton Woods is where those agreements were inked. The US had a gold backed currency and the only economy to survive the war.

This became NATO and the Western Alliance. After 1945 the world reconstructed and the US boomed (the Baby Boomers were born). The 1950s was the American High. The Cold War was in full swing.

In the 1960s, the US got involved in Korea and Vietnam. There was also a movement for social and cultural change. In 1969 Woodstock was the outward expression of these changes. The Baby Boomers were coming of age. The US landed on the Moon and continued the space race through the Apollo missions 1969-1972.

The 1970s brought us more changes and more regional wars. After President Nixon ended gold-backed US Dollar in 1971, our current fiat money system was unleashed and debt, governmental and personal, grew at a rapid pace. 1974 brought us the Watergate scandal and Nixon’s resignation. By 1979, the Iranian Revolution occurred causing President Carter to lose to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 US Presidential election.

The 1980s the Gen Xers came of age as the Baby Boomers began their midlife. The eighties continued financial expansion and the first Space Shuttle launches.

In 1989, the Cold War abruptly ended with the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. Americans became less and less engaged with foreign affairs. The 90’s were not expansive into the “dot-com” bubble crashing in the late 1990s.

Next post I’ll look at the last 20+ years 2000-2023. Keep in mind we are seeing the end of the post imperial WWII, Bretton Woods, Cold War and fiat finance system.