"We're Running a 20th Century Operating System on a 21st Century Economy — And It's Crashing"

What happens when five completely unrelated thinkers, writing across five different decades, all point to the exact same moment in history as a coming crisis point...and that moment is now?
Samuel Huntington, Neil Howe, Ray Dalio, George Friedman, and Peter Turchin never collaborated. All of them landed on the 2020s. In this episode, Larry Kotlikoff sits down with Bruce Mehlman — founder of Mehlman Consulting, former Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Technology Policy under George W. Bush, and author of the widely-read Substack Age of Disruption, for a conversation covering geopolitical aftershocks, political polarization, AI's economic risk, and whether the median American worker has gained any ground in fifty years.

What You'll Learn in This Episode:

[00:08:05] What the Iran conflict revealed about global supply chain fragility — and the permanent changes companies are making now

[00:11:43] The "mid-2020s crisis" convergence — five major historical frameworks, developed independently, all pointing to right now

[00:15:39] Why 11 of the last 13 federal elections have been "change" elections — up from just 3 of 10 in the 1960s and '70s

[00:21:02] The staggering partisan perception gap — how badly Republicans and Democrats misjudge what the other side actually looks like

[00:31:02] A sharp disagreement over whether AI is overhyped — Larry argues AI gets deterministic financial questions catastrophically wrong; Bruce pushes back with the early-aviation analogy

[00:40:52] The "servant economy" concern — whether AI eliminates good middle-management jobs while leaving low-wage service work behind

[00:48:38] A Social Security trustees report most people missed — the program is now 46% underfunded, requiring a payroll tax hike from 12.4% to 18.1% just to keep pace

[00:27:30] The gut-punch question from The 5 Types of Wealth — how many more times will you actually see your aging parents?
Featured Guest
Bruce Mehlman is the founder of Mehlman Consulting, a bipartisan firm that helps Fortune 500 companies and startups navigate policy and political risk. He previously served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Technology Policy under President George W. Bush and held roles at Cisco Systems, the U.S. House of Representatives, and a Washington law firm. He is the executive director of the Technology CEO Council and publishes the widely-read weekly Substack Age of Disruption, known for its data-driven infographics on political and technological trends, regularly cited by The Washington Post, Axios, Politico, CNN, Bloomberg, and Fox News.
Resources Mentioned
Bruce Mehlman's Age of Disruption - https://brucemehlman.substack.com/ Amazon
"Six-Chart Sunday (#100) - How to Navigate an Age of Disruption" — https://brucemehlman.substack.com/p/six-chart-sunday-100-how-to-navigate LinkedIn
"Six-Chart Sunday – Stuck" - https://brucemehlman.substack.com/p/six-chart-sunday-stuck Digital Commons
The Storm Before the Calm by George Friedman - https://www.amazon.com/Storm-Before-Calm-Americas-Discord/dp/0385540493
The Fourth Turning by Neil Howe - https://www.amazon.com/Fourth-Turning-American-Prophecy-Rendezvous/dp/0767900464
Changing World Order by Ray Dalio - https://www.amazon.com/Changing-World-Order-Nations-Succeed/dp/1982160276
The 5 Types of Wealth by Sahil Bloom - https://www.amazon.com/Types-Wealth-Transformative-Guide-Design/dp/059372318X
The Vertigo Years by Philip Blom - https://www.amazon.com/Vertigo-Years-Europe-1900-1914/dp/0465020291
Larry Kotlikoff's Substack, Economics Matters (link: larrykotlikoff.economicsmatters.com)