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History Lessons

Not knowing any of the facts of history that this Time article uses to draw parallels between ancient Rome and the present day, made for dissatisfying reading. It was unclear what we can expect to happen next given our scenario was played out in the past. To a reader who does not know history, it's not possible to connect the dots correctly, but the final analysis is a bit easier for the lay reader:

Back in Rome, the two remaining heads of the three-headed monster were soon at each other’s throats. Caesar, on the side of the populists, defeated Pompey, leader of the establishment, and ruled briefly as a dictator before his assassination on the Ides of March, 44 BCE. His chosen heir, Octavian, won a final civil war before establishing a system of one-man rule, supported by frail, almost fake, democratic institutions, which survived for centuries.

Maybe we have to look forward to the end of democracy as we currently know it and autocracy. The democratic institutions already look "frail, almost fake". There is no real security for people who are not rich enough to have such certainties for themselves. This trend of people retiring as soon as they are able and not dragging out their working years might turn a different direction 

Baby boomers, the huge generation of people born between 1946 and 1964, continued working later in life than previous generations had, providing an unexpected source of workers. Their importance is hard to overstate: The U.S. labor force grew by 9.9 million people between the end of the Great Recession and the start of the pandemic. Nearly 98 percent of that growth — 9.7 million people — came from workers 55 and older.

The current crop of seniors are feeling more optimistic about their long term prospects - atleast for now. Maybe there is a lesson from the times of Octavian if such optimism is warranted or not. 

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