Howe ends on a hopeful note. “The Fourth Turning,” he says, “is a dangerous era, an era of rapid change and clashing group loyalties. But it’s also an era in which we solve enormous national or even global problems. They are eras of creative destruction in which we reinvent our national identity.” If we indeed have a date with happy destiny in 2030, let it be that we arrive there with our wealth intact – a mission for which gold and silver have proven thus far to be particularly well suited.