[Joe 6-pack]

"Not at all. The cycle historically takes about 200 years. We are just taking a little longer in the collapse phase because Reagen turn it back and buy us another two decades. Obama is Carter's second term."

In our case it will take closer to 300 years. As individual longevity increases, generations lengthen. Kids born today and raised by conservative parents with conservative values will still be around for our nation's tricentennial, by which time, if we continue on our present course, our Republic will have been supplanted by an elitist socialist oligarchy.

[OneWingedShark]

The Kennedies, Murtha, the incumbent’s de facto immunity from law-breaking... I’d say that we already have an elite oligarchy.

[GonzoGOP]

In our case it will take closer to 300 years. Actually my gut feeling is that it has more to do with the closing of the frontier. Every generation has some finite percentage of individuals that are ambitious and talented. If there is a frontier it naturally attracts these individuals. This does two thing. It allows the settled areas to remain "settled" and grows the nation at the borders. On the frontier hard work and talent is rewarded, and stupidity is punished. Not by some government agency, but by the simple laws of nature.

Once the borders are closed those ambitious people turn their ambitions inward. Since it becomes a zero sum game they begin to take away from others in order to build their own empires. The lawyer replaces the miner, the politician replaces the engineer.

America stopped growing in 1959. Anyone under the age of 50 has never known a growing America. That generation, now is coming to power.