When the Cycles Collide
The Great Reset of Debt, Money, and Empire
Every civilization believes its moment is permanent, until the cycles turn. Debt piles up quietly. Money loses meaning gradually. Institutions corrode slowly. Then, all at once, the music stops. Today, we stand at a rare and dangerous intersection, a moment when multiple long-term cycles are ending together. The debt cycle, the fiat monetary cycle, the generational Fourth Turning, and even the 100-year empire and reserve-currency cycle are all converging. This isn’t another recession. It’s the synchronised end of an entire economic order.
The Debt Supercycle: Born in 1945, Dying in 2030
After World War II, the world rebuilt on a foundation of credit. Debt was productive then, financing factories, infrastructure, and housing. But as decades passed, leverage stopped producing growth. By the 1980s, governments discovered they could paper over stagnation with borrowing. By the 2000s, they learned to suppress recessions with printed money. By the 2020s, debt became the system itself.
Global debt now exceeds $315 trillion, more than 330% of global GDP. Even with rates near zero for a decade, the system is barely sustainable. Now that rates have risen, governments are borrowing just to pay interest. This is the final phase of the long-term debt cycle, the point where debt no longer stimulates growth, it consumes it. Such moments end in inflation, debasement, or default. The last great deleveraging came in the 1930s and 1940s. Eighty years later, we’re due again.
The Fiat Monetary Cycle: 1971 to 2030
The second great cycle is monetary, the age of fiat currency. Every major monetary system follows the same pattern: gold-backed to paper-backed, to faith-backed, to collapse. The U.S. dollar’s fiat era began in 1971, when Nixon “temporarily” ended gold convertibility. It was a short-term fix for a long-term problem, but it set the world on a path of unanchored money creation.
Fiat systems typically last around 50-70 years before confidence breaks. We’re now 54 years into this one. Inflation is back, fiscal discipline is gone, and central banks are trapped, unable to normalize rates without detonating the debt bomb.
What replaces the current system is unclear. It could be a digital-fiat regime (CBDCs), a new global commodity standard, or something decentralized like Bitcoin. But history is clear: no fiat currency has ever survived indefinitely.
The Fourth Turning: 2008 to 2030
Every four generations, society enters a period of crisis, what historians Strauss and Howe called the Fourth Turning. It’s the season when the social order unravels, institutions collapse, and new ones are born. The last Fourth Turning ran from 1929 to 1946, marked by depression, war, and the birth of the post-war world.
Before that, it was the Civil War. Before that, the American Revolution.
Each cycle lasts roughly 80-90 years, with the crisis phase spanning about two decades. The current Fourth Turning began with the 2008 financial crisis, a global event that shattered the illusion of stability and exposed deep institutional decay.
If the pattern holds, this turning will climax in the late 2020s or early 2030s, precisely when the debt and fiat cycles are also reaching exhaustion.
The Empire and Reserve-Currency Cycle: 1945 to 2040
Empires rise on productivity, discipline, and trust, and fall on debt, decadence, and delusion. History is brutal in its rhythm: the Dutch Guilder, the British Pound, the American Dollar, each ruled global trade for about a century before decline.
The U.S. Dollar became the world’s reserve currency after World War II, enshrined in the Bretton Woods Agreement. That was 80 years ago.
Every reserve-currency era ends the same way:
Excessive debt issuance
Overextension abroad
Loss of fiscal control
Rising rivals and regional blocs
A crisis that forces realignment
The signs are everywhere: the dollar’s share of global reserves has fallen from 72% in 2001 to under 58% today. BRICS nations are trading in local currencies, China is testing commodity settlement systems, and gold accumulation by central banks is at record highs. The global order built on the dollar is weakening, and when the world’s reserve currency falters, the empire tied to it follows.
The Kondratieff Long Wave: Innovation and Stagnation
Overlaying all of this is a 50-60 year Kondratieff Wave, named after economist Nikolai Kondratieff. Each wave begins with a burst of innovation and ends in stagnation and crisis. The current wave began in the 1970s with the microchip and globalization. It peaked in the 2010s, when productivity flattened and credit took over as the growth driver. Kondratieff “winters”, the down phase, tend to last about 15 years and are marked by deflationary pressure, social unrest, and financial collapse.
We’re now in the late winter, heading for the spring of renewal. But as history shows, the renewal always follows destruction.
The Convergence
Each of these cycles is dangerous on its own. Together, they are explosive. The debt supercycle is ending, unsustainable leverage meets rising rates. The fiat cycle is expiring, inflation and distrust erode monetary credibility. The Fourth Turning is raging, social order fractures, populism rises. The empire cycle is turning, geopolitical realignment and the decline of U.S. hegemony. The Kondratieff wave is bottoming, the creative destruction phase before technological renewal.
Every major turning point in history: the 1780s, the 1860s, the 1930s, saw similar alignments: debt crises, currency collapses, and wars. Each ended with a reset, of money, power, and social order. We are entering the same epoch now.
The Reset Ahead
When all cycles end together, peaceful reform becomes impossible. The system doesn’t bend, it breaks. Debt is inflated away through money printing. Currencies are replaced or re-pegged. Wars erupt to clear imbalances and justify new orders. Institutions fail and are rebuilt. By the 2030s, it’s likely we’ll see the end of this 80-year global regime, with a new monetary and geopolitical system rising from the ashes.
The transition will be brutal. But as history shows, every collapse clears the rot and resets the system for renewal. The Roman denarius gave way to gold solidus. The pound sterling gave way to the dollar. Fiat will eventually give way to something harder, fairer, and more grounded in real value.
Surviving the Storm
When systems collapse, those who hold claims lose. Those who hold things endure.
In every cycle’s endgame:
Gold and silver preserve value.
Bitcoin represents a parallel, censorship-resistant escape valve.
Energy and commodities remain the backbone of civilization.
Productive enterprise, real work, real output, replaces speculation.
The coming reset isn’t just financial; it’s civilizational. But when the dust settles, those holding hard assets and real skills will be the architects of the next cycle.
Conclusion
The 2020s will be remembered not for volatility, but for transformation. The debt, monetary, generational, and imperial cycles are all peaking together. The end result won’t be a soft landing, it will be a hard reset of the world order.