The Evolution of Transportation
Myth Of The 20th Century - Sep 27th 2023 4:37am EDTEstimates place the amount of the earth’s land area dedicated to buildings and other fixed structures to be no more than 3%. But of that land, nearly half is exclusive to roads and parking structures in some urban areas. This fact, obviously a consequence of the prevalence of the automobile, illustrates the importance of transportation, […]
The Evolution of Transportation
Myth Of The 20th Century - Sep 27th 2023 4:37am EDTEstimates place the amount of the earth’s land area dedicated to buildings and other fixed structures to be no more than 3%. But of that land, nearly half is exclusive to roads and parking structures in some urban areas. This fact, obviously a consequence of the prevalence of the automobile, illustrates the importance of transportation,… […]
Australia – a History of Settlement
Myth Of The 20th Century - Aug 27th 2023 3:22am EDTAustralia, a name derived from the Latin for “southern land”, sits as a continent unto itself at the far reaches of the Asian landmass, receiving its first settlers over 50,000 years ago when the ice age connected the two by a land bridge. It was not until the European settlements in the 17th century did […]
Stone Choir – Christian Nationalism
Myth Of The 20th Century - Aug 6th 2023 1:04pm EDTIn a time of increasing skepticism of globalization, stemming from losses in jobs, cultural heritage, and sovereignty over ones own homeland, nationalism has re-emerged onto the political stage in protest movements and increasingly populist governments. Christian nationalism, focused on the incorporation of church doctrine into a nation and often a sovereign, is not a new […]
Saudi Arabia and the (End of the) Petrodollar
Myth Of The 20th Century - Jul 23rd 2023 12:27pm EDTIn 1945 near the end of WWII, US President Franklin Roosevelt, on his way back from the Yalta summit, met on the cruiser USS Quincy in the Suez Canal with Kign Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia. The meeting, prompted by Roosevelt asking how the United States had outlasted the mighty German war machine, was motivated […]
Someone Has to Say It – Tom Kawczynski
Myth Of The 20th Century - Jul 13th 2023 11:00pm EDTCarl von Clausewitz described war as politics by other means. In many ways the reverse could be said, with the modern state in the West seemingly arrayed against its own citizens in a constant battle of misdirection and interference in their lives. Tom Kawczynski, author of ‘Surviving the Fall of America’ and former town manager […]
Sex and the City – Women, Real Estate – After Dark
Myth Of The 20th Century - Jun 22nd 2023 11:08pm EDTAs a show that has primarily focused on geopolitical history, we at the Myth of the 20th Century have not touched on the subject of women as much as others. But given the importance of women to all societies, and especially those facing declining birth rates, existential ennui, and many other social ills seemingly common […]
Superpower Rivalry in the 21st Century
Myth Of The 20th Century - Jun 20th 2023 1:37am EDTSoon after the end of the Second World War, the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as ‘superpowers’, leaders of the two primary ideological power blocks across the world’s major continents. After nearly 50 years of competition, the United States emerged victorious, and led an unprecedented era of ‘globalization’ for the next 20 years […]
Pineapple Imperialism – a History of Hawaii
Myth Of The 20th Century - May 11th 2023 2:59am EDTViewed as a microcosm of Manifest Destiny beyond the confines of the geographical limits of the continental United States, the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands by the US in the late 19th century marked the beginning of what we now consider the global American Empire. To the Hawaiian peoples, it was a clearly just as […]
BANKING CRISIS – After Dark
Myth Of The 20th Century - Mar 17th 2023 5:42am EDTThe English word ‘bank’ meaning a depository and lending institution, derives from the Italian word ‘banca’, or ‘bench.’ This belies the origins of modern finance in Renaissance Italy, where deals initially struck at coffee house bench evolved into the great trading and banking houses of the Medicis, where double-entry book keeping enabled the matching of […]
The Changing World Order – Why Nations Succeed and Fail
Myth Of The 20th Century - Feb 21st 2023 3:16am ESTRay Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, has written several books on the world of investing and the economy in general based on his years of experience as manager of the world’s largest hedge fund. In the latest of his ‘Principles’ series, Dalio applies his quantitative approach of macro investing to analyzing countries, seeking to identify […]
The World for Sale – Commodity Trading in Uncertain Times
Myth Of The 20th Century - Jan 28th 2023 1:32pm ESTThe exchange of goods and services has existed since the earliest forms of civilization, from simple barter arrangements at the local town square to Phoenician traders navigating the Mediterranean with goods from Europe and North Africa. Today, however, the scope of exchange is truly massive, with online commerce coming to dominate nearly all segments of […]
Suburban Redevelopment – The Growth Ponzi Scheme
Myth Of The 20th Century - Jan 28th 2023 1:32pm ESTEver since the Great Recession and financial crisis of the late 2000s, the American economic model of building large suburban housing developments with cheap credit and sometimes even cheaper building materials and standards has been called into question. Setting aside all the jobs generated in construction, banking, and other financial intermediation, municipal governments also depend […]
Zeihan – After Dark – the Collapse of Globalization
Myth Of The 20th Century - Jan 28th 2023 1:31pm ESTIn the world of geopolitics, there are those that decide, and those that recommend. While it is debatable who wields more actual power, it is clear that the number of advisers, consultants, analysts, strategists and self-appointed experts clearly outweighs that of the policy makers. Peter Zeihan, a unique blend of the recommender class, has made […]
2022 Year in Review
Myth Of The 20th Century - Jan 18th 2023 6:09am ESTStagflation. Fuel Prices. Shortages. Political Turmoil. War in Europe. Roe V. Wade. Crypto Collapse. Counter-counter culture. Most years have one or two seminal, defining events that set the societal zeitgeist, but in 2022 so many events vied for attention that most people had to take time not only to revaluate what it means for the […]
The World for Sale – Commodity Trading in Uncertain Times
Myth Of The 20th Century - Dec 18th 2022 8:02pm ESTThe exchange of goods and services has existed since the earliest forms of civilization, from simple barter arrangements at the local town square to Phoenician traders navigating the Mediterranean with goods from Europe and North Africa. Today, however, the scope of exchange is truly massive, with online commerce coming to dominate nearly all segments of […]
Suburban Redevelopment – The Growth Ponzi Scheme
Myth Of The 20th Century - Nov 17th 2022 6:56pm ESTEver since the Great Recession and financial crisis of the late 2000s, the American economic model of building large suburban housing developments with cheap credit and sometimes even cheaper building materials and standards has been called into question. Setting aside all the jobs generated in construction, banking, and other financial intermediation, municipal governments also depend […]
Zeihan – After Dark – the Collapse of Globalization
Myth Of The 20th Century - Oct 31st 2022 2:38am EDTIn the world of geopolitics, there are those that decide, and those that recommend. While it is debatable who wields more actual power, it is clear that the number of advisers, consultants, analysts, strategists and self-appointed experts clearly outweighs that of the policy makers. Peter Zeihan, a unique blend of the recommender class, has made […]
Unfriendly Fire – a History of False Flags
Myth Of The 20th Century - Sep 24th 2022 12:50pm EDTAccording to the BBC, “a false flag is a political or military action carried out with the intention of blaming an opponent for it. Nations have often done this by staging a real or simulated attack on their own side and saying the enemy did it, as a pretext for going to war. The term […]
Cadillac Desert – The American West and Its Disappearing Water
Myth Of The 20th Century - Aug 29th 2022 10:24pm EDTPrior to 1900, the western United States comprised less than 5% of the country’s total population. By 2000, that number had quadrupled to over 20%, and was on track to continue growing as a percentage of the total until only recently, where the southern states have begun outpacing it in term of number of people […]
Assassination – After Dark
Myth Of The 20th Century - Aug 5th 2022 10:42am EDTWith the alleged assassination of Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri by US forces and the shooting of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the past few weeks, conspiracy theories abound as to the motives behind potential realignment in global politics and the media news cycle. Also in the news is economist Jeffrey Sachs making […]
Exxon Mobil – Peak Oil and its Consequences
Myth Of The 20th Century - Jul 10th 2022 1:47pm EDTSince the industrial revolution and the advent of fossil fuels in place of manual labor powering nearly all aspects of civilization from agriculture to transportation to manufacturing, human productivity and population have exploded, going from under 1 billion in 1750 to a projected population of 10 billion in 2100. In the 20th century, oil became […]
Sunset of the Ottomans
Myth Of The 20th Century - Jun 24th 2022 12:46am EDTFrom the 14th through the early 20th century, the Middle East consisted of a hybrid civilization composed of various tribes and peoples stretching from the Balkans down through the Arabian Peninsula under the auspices of the Ottoman Empire. To its promoters, Constantinople administered a multicultural society that balanced ethnic and religious differences into a harmonious […]
The Rise of Goldman Sachs
Myth Of The 20th Century - Jun 8th 2022 3:20pm EDTAs a $60 billion a year investment bank engaged in market making and asset management for equities, fixed income, commodity and derivative securities for large institutional clients, Goldman Sachs, having been founded in 1869, is arguably the world’s most recognizable name on Wall Street. Known for attracting some of the best financial talent, it is […]
Food Security, Supply and Shortages – with James LaFond
Myth Of The 20th Century - May 6th 2022 7:32pm EDTWith a spate of recent news stories about fires and other incidents forcing closures of over 20 food processing and distribution centers in the United States, Canada and Europe this year, people have started wondering if there has been a concerted effort to undermine food security in and around the industrialized world. Comparing to previous […]