1980s The World A long secret war of the world was ending. New ones began. Parts of the world went to pieces. The pieces shifted. New players were on the board. One empire lost vassals, and changed names. The other empire would fight another long war soon. In the meantime, business was business. The money and weapons would flow between pieces on the board. The deals from 1980 to 1984 were a brief peak. Five powers made up 84% of the sales, the exports were: The U.S.S.R., 37%, the U.S.A. 29%, ...

1980s The World A long secret war of the world was ending. New ones began. Parts of the world went to pieces. The pieces shifted. New players were on the board. One empire lost vassals, and changed names. The other empire would fight another long war soon. In the meantime, business was business. The money and weapons would flow between pieces on the board. The deals from 1980 to 1984 were a brief peak. Five powers made up 84% of the sales, the exports were: The U.S.S.R., 37%, the U.S.A. 29%, ...

1980 Las Vegas The MGM Grand Hotel, bigger than the Empire State Building, went up in flames. The largest hotel in the world became the largest disaster in Las Vegas history, killing 87 people. In less than 9 months, it reopened. Its owner, Kirk Kerkorian, was an unstoppable deal-maker. Born Kerkor Kirkorian in 1917 in Fresno, California, "Kirk" grew up speaking his parents' native Armenian as his first language. The family moved to L.A. during the post-Great War depression of 1920-21. A...

1980 Las Vegas The MGM Grand Hotel, bigger than the Empire State Building, went up in flames. The largest hotel in the world became the largest disaster in Las Vegas history, killing 87 people. In less than 9 months, it reopened. Its owner, Kirk Kerkorian, was an unstoppable deal-maker. Born Kerkor Kirkorian in 1917 in Fresno, California, "Kirk" grew up speaking his parents' native Armenian as his first language. The family moved to L.A. during the post-Great War depression of 1920-21. A...

1982 Berkeley The financial markets were coming alive again. People were looking for love in material places, feeling themselves in the dayglo, pastel, monogrammed. Fashion logos were love-bites for egos. People wanted more, and all they had to do was to charge their way up to a summit of self-actualization, through the things they bought and wore. Plastic money, credit, was just getting started. Meanwhile, a UC Berkeley graduate wrote about something new, that would be for a long time new, i...

1982 Berkeley The financial markets were coming alive again. People were looking for love in material places, feeling themselves in the dayglo, pastel, monogrammed. Fashion logos were love-bites for egos. People wanted more, and all they had to do was to charge their way up to a summit of self-actualization, through the things they bought and wore. Plastic money, credit, was just getting started. Meanwhile, a UC Berkeley graduate wrote about something new, that would be for a long time new, i...

1914 France They thought home by Christmas. After 5 months of fighting they were still in the trenches killing each other. The toll of the "Race to the Sea" and the "First Battle of Ypres" was too great. Something happened on the Western Front. Outbreaks of peace on Christmas Eve. By dawn, there was "Merry Christmas", handshakes, cigarettes and carols. Rumors of "football" matches. It was exhaustion and the need to recover the bodies of fallen comrades from the field. Each side's trenche...

1914 France They thought home by Christmas. After 5 months of fighting they were still in the trenches killing each other. The toll of the "Race to the Sea" and the "First Battle of Ypres" was too great. Something happened on the Western Front. Outbreaks of peace on Christmas Eve. By dawn, there was "Merry Christmas", handshakes, cigarettes and carols. Rumors of "football" matches. It was exhaustion and the need to recover the bodies of fallen comrades from the field. Each side's trenche...

1989 The beginning of the end for an old era. The end of the beginning for a new era. In 1946 Winston Churchill gave it a name in a speech he gave in Fulton, Missouri. “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an “iron curtain” has descended across the Continent.” "Iron Curtain" might have come from a Russian poem from 1918. The public thought it was still 1945 and "Allies" were still allies, and objected to the phrase. It takes time for people to catch on, after the old last gi...

1989 The beginning of the end for an old era. The end of the beginning for a new era. In 1946 Winston Churchill gave it a name in a speech he gave in Fulton, Missouri. “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an “iron curtain” has descended across the Continent.” "Iron Curtain" might have come from a Russian poem from 1918. The public thought it was still 1945 and "Allies" were still allies, and objected to the phrase. It takes time for people to catch on, after the old last gi...

November 1989 Gorbachev’s loosened the U.S.S.R's reins over its sphere, Eastern Europe, and wanted to guide the U.S.S.R. into a new direction. He wanted to reform the system for the next century. This move pushed back the dominoes that fell after 1945 the other way, one of which knocked down the Berlin Wall in November 1989. He would meet the the American President in December. POTUS 41, Bush, supported democracy but let events take their course on their own. He met with Gorbachev in Mal...

November 1989 Gorbachev’s loosened the U.S.S.R's reins over its sphere, Eastern Europe, and wanted to guide the U.S.S.R. into a new direction. He wanted to reform the system for the next century. This move pushed back the dominoes that fell after 1945 the other way, one of which knocked down the Berlin Wall in November 1989. He would meet the the American President in December. POTUS 41, Bush, supported democracy but let events take their course on their own. He met with Gorbachev in Mal...

1980 NYC A commodities broker sold the ultimate commodity to the masses. He plumbed the deep banal waters of culture, and made a high art of what he salvaged from its depths: domesticity turned to materialism. From post-WW II Americana, he recovered already made things, and turned them into art. In 1984, he encased vaccuum cleaners under plexiglass, like gold antiquities, cast under harsh florescent lights. Like any model under hard hot klieg lamps, it was an unflattering account of post-war ...

1980 NYC A commodities broker sold the ultimate commodity to the masses. He plumbed the deep banal waters of culture, and made a high art of what he salvaged from its depths: domesticity turned to materialism. From post-WW II Americana, he recovered already made things, and turned them into art. In 1984, he encased vaccuum cleaners under plexiglass, like gold antiquities, cast under harsh florescent lights. Like any model under hard hot klieg lamps, it was an unflattering account of post-war ...

1988 Washington D.C. They denied its existence for years but in 1988, a Defense department official released a grainy picture of an odd looking plane. It was an idea based on a Russian theoretical math paper from 1964, based on even earlier work from a German scientist. It was possible to make an airplane, even big, invisible to radar, with the right shapes. The problem was that such a plane needed a computer to keep it flying in the air. Computers that could crunch the math filled rooms, nev...

1988 Washington D.C. They denied its existence for years but in 1988, a Defense department official released a grainy picture of an odd looking plane. It was an idea based on a Russian theoretical math paper from 1964, based on even earlier work from a German scientist. It was possible to make an airplane, even big, invisible to radar, with the right shapes. The problem was that such a plane needed a computer to keep it flying in the air. Computers that could crunch the math filled rooms, nev...

1983 Virginia The big money, the product market fit, was in games, and some of them leaned hard into it. If you were a game developer you had to play by their rules if you wanted their users. Humble beginnings with business customers and enterprise services led to consumer services. The official excuses were for information and "useful" services but it was all about games. A handful of companies competed in the market for all those minds playing together, for market share and attention. Some ...

1983 Virginia The big money, the product market fit, was in games, and some of them leaned hard into it. If you were a game developer you had to play by their rules if you wanted their users. Humble beginnings with business customers and enterprise services led to consumer services. The official excuses were for information and "useful" services but it was all about games. A handful of companies competed in the market for all those minds playing together, for market share and attention. Some ...

1986 New York City He was busted. He admitted he did it. He cried and confessed to his lawyer. The best and brightest who became a senior banker just 3 years after joining a sleepy old Wall Street firm. He ran circles around the lifers who were there through the long lean years, and had hung on in the "Go Go 60s" and post-Vietnam Stagflation 70s. 15 years after joining "the Street", at the top, Martin Siegel was done. For some it was never enough. What was the "number"? More. Guerrilla warrio...

1986 New York City He was busted. He admitted he did it. He cried and confessed to his lawyer. The best and brightest who became a senior banker just 3 years after joining a sleepy old Wall Street firm. He ran circles around the lifers who were there through the long lean years, and had hung on in the "Go Go 60s" and post-Vietnam Stagflation 70s. 15 years after joining "the Street", at the top, Martin Siegel was done. For some it was never enough. What was the "number"? More. Guerrilla warrio...

1989 Japan One war was lost, another was beginning. The world was being divided between the victors. An economic battle for the ages began. The first cracks emerged on both sides. A wall fell in Berlin and a bubble popped in Japan. Enemies became trusted allies and economic giants. Japan rebuilt itself and its economy began a long ascent, becoming the 2nd largest by 1989. An economic "miracle" lifted the country from post-war devastation as a defeated enemy. The miracle seemed endless, as it ...

1989 Japan One war was lost, another was beginning. The world was being divided between the victors. An economic battle for the ages began. The first cracks emerged on both sides. A wall fell in Berlin and a bubble popped in Japan. Enemies became trusted allies and economic giants. Japan rebuilt itself and its economy began a long ascent, becoming the 2nd largest by 1989. An economic "miracle" lifted the country from post-war devastation as a defeated enemy. The miracle seemed endless, as it ...

1984 The U.S. and U.S.S.R. had missiles targeting each other for years. W.W. III seemed a real possibility. Under the surface of our worst imaginations are brighter dreams. Senate Joint Resolution 236, issued October 1984, was a hint that we could look to the skies and dream about the stars instead of oblivion. When the 8th and final leader of the U.S.S.R., Gorbachev, took office in 1985, POTUS 40, Reagan, thought about space missions together. The stumbling block was POTUS 40's ambition...

1984 The U.S. and U.S.S.R. had missiles targeting each other for years. W.W. III seemed a real possibility. Under the surface of our worst imaginations are brighter dreams. Senate Joint Resolution 236, issued October 1984, was a hint that we could look to the skies and dream about the stars instead of oblivion. When the 8th and final leader of the U.S.S.R., Gorbachev, took office in 1985, POTUS 40, Reagan, thought about space missions together. The stumbling block was POTUS 40's ambition...