14. August 2009
By Gerald Celente Pak Alert Press – KINGSTON, NY — The natives are restless. The third shot of the “Second American Revolution” has been fired. History is being made. But just as with the first two shots, the third shot is not being heard. America is seething. Not since the Civil War has anything like this happened. But the protests are either being intentionally downplayed or ignorantly misinterpreted.
The first shot was fired on April 15, 2009. Over 700 anti-tax rallies and “Tea Parties” erupted nationwide. Rather than acknowledge their significance, the general media either ignored or ridiculed both protests and protestors, playing on “tea bagging” for its sexual innuendo.
Initially President Obama said he was unaware of the tea parties. The White House later warned they could “mutate” into something “unhealthy.”
Shot #2 was fired on the Fourth of July, when throngs of citizens across the nation gathered to again protest “taxation without representation.” And as before, the demonstrations were branded right-wing mischief and dismissed.
The third volley, fired in early August, was aimed point blank at Senators and House members pitching President Obama’s health care reform package to constituents. In fiery town hall meetings, enraged citizens shouted down their elected representatives. It took a strong police presence and/or burly bodyguards to preserve a safe physical space between the politicians and irate townspeople.
The White House and the media have labeled protestors “conservative fringe elements,” or as players in staged events organized by Republican operatives that have been egged on by Fox news and right-wing radio show hosts.
In regard to this latest wave of outbursts, health industry interests opposed to any reform are also being blamed for inciting the public. But organized or spontaneous is not the issue. While most protestors exhibit little grasp of the complex 1000 page health care reform document (that nary a legislator has read either), their emotion is clearly real and un-staged.
Rightly or wrongly, the legislation is regarded as yet another straw on the already overloaded camel’s back. A series of gigantic, unpopular government-imposed (but taxpayer-financed) bailouts, buyouts, rescue and stimulus packages have been stuffed down the gullet of Americans. With no public platform to voice their opposition, options for citizens have been limited to fruitless petitions, e-mails and phone calls to Congress all fielded by anonymous staff underlings.
Now, with Congress in recess and elected representatives less than a stone’s throw away, the public is exploding. The devil is not in the details of the heath care reform, the devil is the government mandating health care. Regardless of how the plan is pitched or what is being promised, to the public the legislation is yet another instance of big government taking another piece out of their lives and making them pay for it; again telling them what they can or cannot do.
Though in its early stages, the “Second American Revolution” is underway. Yet, what we forecast will become the most profound political trend of the century the trend that will change the world is still invisible to the same experts, authorities and pundits who didn’t see the financial crisis coming until the bottom fell out of the economy.
Trend Forecast: Conditions will continue to deteriorate. The global economy is terminally ill. The recession is in a brief remission, not the early stages of recovery. Cheap money, easy credit and unrestrained borrowing brought on an economic crisis that cannot be cured by monetary and fiscal policies that promote more cheap money, easy credit and unrestrained borrowing.
Nevertheless, Washington will continue to intervene, tax and exert control. Protests will escalate and riots will follow.
Fourth Shot of the “Second American Revolution”: While there are many wild cards that could light the fuse, The Trends Research Institute forecasts that if the threat of government-forced Swine Flu vaccinations is realized, it will be the fourth shot. Tens of millions will fight for their right to remain free and unvaccinated.
Publisher’s Note: The power of the Internet and new technologies is inexorably fermenting the “Second American Revolution.” However widespread and emotionally charged, had the tax rallies, tea parties and healthcare reform protests occurred in years past, they might have been covered by the local media, but might not have made national headline news and thus would have died stillborn.
Now, with the ubiquitous camera-equipped cell phone, universal access to YouTube, and millions of twitters and tweets, the uprisings cannot be ignored, contained, managed, spun or edited down. The revolutionary fervor will prove contagious.
Can anything stop it?
Trend Forecast: Before the momentum of the “Second American Revolution” becomes unstoppable, it could be derailed through some false flag event designed to deceive the public, or a genuine event or crisis capable of rallying the entire nation behind the President. In a worst-case scenario, according to Trends Research Institute Director, Gerald Celente, “Given the pattern of governments to parlay egregious failures into mega-failures, the classic trend they follow, when all else fails, is to take their nation to war.”
A false flag attempt, a genuine crisis, or a declaration of war, may slow the momentum of the “Second American Revolution,” but nothing will stop it.
To schedule an interview with Gerald Celente, please contact:
Laura Martin The Trends Research Institute lmartin@trendsresearch.com www.trendsresearch.com 845.331.3500 Ext. 1
Showing posts with label Gerald Celente. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gerald Celente. Show all posts
Monday, August 31, 2009
Friday, August 21, 2009
US Economy's Future is Controlled by 3 Companies, and They’re Not Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan or CitiCorp
by Terry Easton
Human Events
June 12, 2009
If the United States were Japan back in the 1998, its credit rating would too have been downgraded by now from its AAA credit risk to AA+ or lower. Indeed, the once-stellar credit ratings of European countries Ireland, Italy, and Spain have already been shown the axe. Spain’s unemployment is now edging upward towards 20%. Ireland’s recent loss of its coveted ‘Triple-A’ status has touched off a financial crisis which is rapidly deteriorating into a political crisis. As a result, the center-left party will probably be swept away and replaced with a pro-business center-right party when the voters next get their chance. As the say in Europe, “we like to vote in the socialists when we’re feeling fat and full of cash, but when times get tough economically, we like to replace them with the ‘grown ups’ who won’t run our country into the ground fiscally”.The UK is also teetering on the brink of losing its cherished AAA status. And with it will go the pound (down) and unemployment (up).How does the credit worthiness of a country affect its fiscal health? And why should the politicians and bureaucrats in the White House, the Treasury and the Fed be quaking in their boots right now?Simple. If a country, like the US, should lose its pristine credit rating, it will instantly lose the ability to sell its bonds to many potential buyers. And, God knows, with all the monster deficits being wrung up by the White House these days, the US government needs all the newly minted Treasury Bills – in the tens of billions of dollars - to be safely sold, without fail, week after week. The fate of the US government hangs in the balance by the analysts at the three global credit rating agencies who daily measure the financial health of 125 countries. They’re akin to the 3 personal credit bureaus whose “Fico scores” compiled by the Fair Isaacs company determine whether you can get a credit card or car loan or even a decent home mortgage. With a really good Fico score, like 800 or above, you’ll be offered the lowest loan interest rates. As you score drops down to the 700’s and 600’s, your credit risk goes up, and borrowers begin to disappear. Those that remain will charge higher interest to make the same loan. Your risk of defaulting on the loan jumps. Drop below 600, and you probably can’t get a loan from anyone except, perhaps, the local loan shark – at 10% interest – per month.Unfortunately, many major buyers of bonds -- government or corporate, US or overseas – have restrictions on what they can legally buy. US Treasury bonds are often owned by central banks of other countries -- like China -- and retirement programs, mutual funds and pension funds. Many are only allowed to own only ultra-safe ‘Triple-A’ rated ‘paper’. Lose that rating, and the next day, the market will see hundreds of billions of dollars of US government Treasury bonds dumped as ‘secondary sales’ -- perhaps at fire sale prices.. When such an oversupply of sellers dumps T-bills, their price will fall smartly, and the Treasury bond interest rates will skyrocket, as many of the potential buyers are forced to sell too. So the cost of borrowing money both short and long term will spike up. Then, almost immediately afterwards, the interest rates on credit cards, corporate borrowing, and most importantly, home mortgages will shoot up as well. The rating agencies are terrified to tell the truth. Because the US is the principal money center on the planet, and because the US dollar is the world’s reserve currency, such a lowering of the US AAA rating -- which it has maintained for over a century -- will ripple through the global economy as bond and stock markets recoils in shock and follow the US downward. Credit rating agency fees will soon follow. They have not yet downgraded the UK pound-based ‘Gilts’ (government bonds). These are on the ropes as the UK has been faithfully following in the US footsteps by taking over its banks, printing up funny money to pay the bills, and running massive government deficits to add its own ‘stimulus’ package to the economy. Naturally, the UK’s unemployment rate is shooting upwards as well.The UK’s Labour (socialist) government is teetering on collapse with the lowest voter rating in over 100 years. The fall of their government, due to the fiscal incompetence of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the former “wunderkind” Chancellor (their equivalent to the Treasury Secretary) and his decade long spend-and-spend policy, is predicted to occur this autumn, if not sooner. When that happens, the dam will likely break, and the UK will be stripped of its AAA rating. The pressure will immediately shift to the US as overseas money -- now funding 50% of government bond sales -- begins to flee. Interest rates will go up as the Treasury must continue to conduct ever-bigger weekly bond sales to fewer and fewer buyers. Eventually, the other show will drop, and the US will lose its Triple-A rating as well.This is uncharted territory. Over the past few decades. countries like Mexico, Argentina, and Zimbabwe have seen their ratings plummet – along with their standard of living. Unemployment figures have recently reached 25% or more in other developed countries. But not yet in the US.Faced with the problem of declining bond sales and raising interest rates killing the economic recovery, and unable to turn to the Chinese or Japanese to bail out the government, the only course of action left will be for the Federal Reserve to “re-liquify” the market. That is, the Fed will simply ‘print up’ more money to use to buy the non-selling Treasury bills itself. And when this new money hits the marketplace, the amount of overall money in circulation will quickly increase. The dictionary defines “inflation” as simply an increase in the money supply. When you increase the total amount of money -- but not correspondingly increase any more goods or services being produced -- the cost of everything you buy denominated in the unit of money (in this case, the dollar) will go up. It takes more of the pieces of paper called ‘dollars’ to buy the same goods and services.Real wealth and hard-assets such as commodities (food, metals, gold) will go up in dollar terms. Other stronger currencies will go up too. Fixed-interest-rate loans (like 30-year fixed mortgages) will be a disaster for the lender and a magical liability for the borrower, who will be able to repay the loans years later in dollars that will be worth far less, if not worthless. Those lenders will be forced out of business by rising costs, reducing the supply of consumer and business credit even more.This negative-reinforcing downward spiral, once started, cannot be easily stopped short of a massive depression. Interest rates could shoot up to 30-50% per year. In the worst-case scenario, hyperinflation, or monthly inflation above 50%, could occur. Such an event nearly always ends with a war or internal revolution. The above scenario is what the strategic planners at the White House, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve desperately fear. And we are now likely on the knife edge, as Gerald Celente of Trends Research Institute has recently predicted.I too, see this as an exceptional time. Fortunately, the White House is quite good at twisting both the arms of powerful people on Wall Street and Main Street. They’ve fired the Chairmen of General Motors and Chrysler and AIG. They’ve forced major solvent banks like Wells Fargo to take the so-called ‘Tarp’ bailout money even when they didn’t need to and didn’t want to. They’ve taken over 80% of all home mortgages with the nationalization of FreddyMac and FannieMae. And they’ve gotten gentle press treatment from those “main stream media” outlets (with the exception of CNBC’s Rick Santelli). I expect that the 3 New York-based bond rating agencies will go along with the US government and maintain the charade of its AAA rating for as long as possible, hoping that a miracle occurs and the fabled “green shoots” quickly grow into a sustained recovery, rather than a man-eating plant. But I’m not optimistic, and I invite any reader to argue against my position. While I am hopeful in the future of humankind and the wonders that the free market and science can bring over the long term, in the short term I fear that the light I see at the end of this tunnel is, in fact, an oncoming train.
Mr. Easton teaches University economics and is passionate about technology and entrepreneurship. He is rosy about the long-term future: �The glass isn�t half full, it�s overflowing!�
Human Events
June 12, 2009
If the United States were Japan back in the 1998, its credit rating would too have been downgraded by now from its AAA credit risk to AA+ or lower. Indeed, the once-stellar credit ratings of European countries Ireland, Italy, and Spain have already been shown the axe. Spain’s unemployment is now edging upward towards 20%. Ireland’s recent loss of its coveted ‘Triple-A’ status has touched off a financial crisis which is rapidly deteriorating into a political crisis. As a result, the center-left party will probably be swept away and replaced with a pro-business center-right party when the voters next get their chance. As the say in Europe, “we like to vote in the socialists when we’re feeling fat and full of cash, but when times get tough economically, we like to replace them with the ‘grown ups’ who won’t run our country into the ground fiscally”.The UK is also teetering on the brink of losing its cherished AAA status. And with it will go the pound (down) and unemployment (up).How does the credit worthiness of a country affect its fiscal health? And why should the politicians and bureaucrats in the White House, the Treasury and the Fed be quaking in their boots right now?Simple. If a country, like the US, should lose its pristine credit rating, it will instantly lose the ability to sell its bonds to many potential buyers. And, God knows, with all the monster deficits being wrung up by the White House these days, the US government needs all the newly minted Treasury Bills – in the tens of billions of dollars - to be safely sold, without fail, week after week. The fate of the US government hangs in the balance by the analysts at the three global credit rating agencies who daily measure the financial health of 125 countries. They’re akin to the 3 personal credit bureaus whose “Fico scores” compiled by the Fair Isaacs company determine whether you can get a credit card or car loan or even a decent home mortgage. With a really good Fico score, like 800 or above, you’ll be offered the lowest loan interest rates. As you score drops down to the 700’s and 600’s, your credit risk goes up, and borrowers begin to disappear. Those that remain will charge higher interest to make the same loan. Your risk of defaulting on the loan jumps. Drop below 600, and you probably can’t get a loan from anyone except, perhaps, the local loan shark – at 10% interest – per month.Unfortunately, many major buyers of bonds -- government or corporate, US or overseas – have restrictions on what they can legally buy. US Treasury bonds are often owned by central banks of other countries -- like China -- and retirement programs, mutual funds and pension funds. Many are only allowed to own only ultra-safe ‘Triple-A’ rated ‘paper’. Lose that rating, and the next day, the market will see hundreds of billions of dollars of US government Treasury bonds dumped as ‘secondary sales’ -- perhaps at fire sale prices.. When such an oversupply of sellers dumps T-bills, their price will fall smartly, and the Treasury bond interest rates will skyrocket, as many of the potential buyers are forced to sell too. So the cost of borrowing money both short and long term will spike up. Then, almost immediately afterwards, the interest rates on credit cards, corporate borrowing, and most importantly, home mortgages will shoot up as well. The rating agencies are terrified to tell the truth. Because the US is the principal money center on the planet, and because the US dollar is the world’s reserve currency, such a lowering of the US AAA rating -- which it has maintained for over a century -- will ripple through the global economy as bond and stock markets recoils in shock and follow the US downward. Credit rating agency fees will soon follow. They have not yet downgraded the UK pound-based ‘Gilts’ (government bonds). These are on the ropes as the UK has been faithfully following in the US footsteps by taking over its banks, printing up funny money to pay the bills, and running massive government deficits to add its own ‘stimulus’ package to the economy. Naturally, the UK’s unemployment rate is shooting upwards as well.The UK’s Labour (socialist) government is teetering on collapse with the lowest voter rating in over 100 years. The fall of their government, due to the fiscal incompetence of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the former “wunderkind” Chancellor (their equivalent to the Treasury Secretary) and his decade long spend-and-spend policy, is predicted to occur this autumn, if not sooner. When that happens, the dam will likely break, and the UK will be stripped of its AAA rating. The pressure will immediately shift to the US as overseas money -- now funding 50% of government bond sales -- begins to flee. Interest rates will go up as the Treasury must continue to conduct ever-bigger weekly bond sales to fewer and fewer buyers. Eventually, the other show will drop, and the US will lose its Triple-A rating as well.This is uncharted territory. Over the past few decades. countries like Mexico, Argentina, and Zimbabwe have seen their ratings plummet – along with their standard of living. Unemployment figures have recently reached 25% or more in other developed countries. But not yet in the US.Faced with the problem of declining bond sales and raising interest rates killing the economic recovery, and unable to turn to the Chinese or Japanese to bail out the government, the only course of action left will be for the Federal Reserve to “re-liquify” the market. That is, the Fed will simply ‘print up’ more money to use to buy the non-selling Treasury bills itself. And when this new money hits the marketplace, the amount of overall money in circulation will quickly increase. The dictionary defines “inflation” as simply an increase in the money supply. When you increase the total amount of money -- but not correspondingly increase any more goods or services being produced -- the cost of everything you buy denominated in the unit of money (in this case, the dollar) will go up. It takes more of the pieces of paper called ‘dollars’ to buy the same goods and services.Real wealth and hard-assets such as commodities (food, metals, gold) will go up in dollar terms. Other stronger currencies will go up too. Fixed-interest-rate loans (like 30-year fixed mortgages) will be a disaster for the lender and a magical liability for the borrower, who will be able to repay the loans years later in dollars that will be worth far less, if not worthless. Those lenders will be forced out of business by rising costs, reducing the supply of consumer and business credit even more.This negative-reinforcing downward spiral, once started, cannot be easily stopped short of a massive depression. Interest rates could shoot up to 30-50% per year. In the worst-case scenario, hyperinflation, or monthly inflation above 50%, could occur. Such an event nearly always ends with a war or internal revolution. The above scenario is what the strategic planners at the White House, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve desperately fear. And we are now likely on the knife edge, as Gerald Celente of Trends Research Institute has recently predicted.I too, see this as an exceptional time. Fortunately, the White House is quite good at twisting both the arms of powerful people on Wall Street and Main Street. They’ve fired the Chairmen of General Motors and Chrysler and AIG. They’ve forced major solvent banks like Wells Fargo to take the so-called ‘Tarp’ bailout money even when they didn’t need to and didn’t want to. They’ve taken over 80% of all home mortgages with the nationalization of FreddyMac and FannieMae. And they’ve gotten gentle press treatment from those “main stream media” outlets (with the exception of CNBC’s Rick Santelli). I expect that the 3 New York-based bond rating agencies will go along with the US government and maintain the charade of its AAA rating for as long as possible, hoping that a miracle occurs and the fabled “green shoots” quickly grow into a sustained recovery, rather than a man-eating plant. But I’m not optimistic, and I invite any reader to argue against my position. While I am hopeful in the future of humankind and the wonders that the free market and science can bring over the long term, in the short term I fear that the light I see at the end of this tunnel is, in fact, an oncoming train.
Mr. Easton teaches University economics and is passionate about technology and entrepreneurship. He is rosy about the long-term future: �The glass isn�t half full, it�s overflowing!�
Exclusive Interview with Future Prediction Expert Gerald Celente
by Terry Easton
Human Events
June 5, 2009
It’s the end of the world as the Greater Depression hits after 2010’s failed “W-recovery”Human Events had the opportunity to interview forecaster extraordinaire Gerald Celente, President of Trends Research Institute, several days ago -- and the future he predicts looks bleak indeed. In fact, as Mr. Celente sees it, the Great Depression will seem like a mild recession as what waits for us in 2011 hits with the force of a Katrina financial hurricane.In case you’re wondering who Mr. Celente is (if this is still possible), he’s appeared -- along with his predictions -- on Oprah, CNBC, Reuters, NBC, PBS, BBC, the Glenn Beck Show -- the list goes on an on. His Trends Report has been successfully predicting the major future trends impacting our lives for 3 decades, including calling the dot com crash back in the 1990's.Mr. Celente's forecast on our impending future is based on his study of history. He says we are bent on destroying our currency, bankrupting our government, and unleashing a violent citizen-against-citizen eruption as the economy collapses into chaos and martial law fascism. Quite a claim. And God help us if he is right -- again.“We’re sounding the alarm about the ongoing downward economic cycle”, Gerald told Human Events. “In 2002, we predicted that the collapse of the American empire would fall like the World Trade Center in a thunderous crash -- in slow motion before our eyes. And now it’s happening.”Mr. Celente follows over 300 trends: family, crime, war, education, consumer & business patterns which TRI synthesizes to predict the future.“The US is becoming a shadow of what it used to be. Take education for example. The OECD group of developed countries ranks quality of life, education, health care of its member nations. The US is now falling down the table as one piece of data after another shows America is in decline. We’re no longer Win, Place or Show in quality of life, education, longevity… all the essentials where we used to be #1. And our economic underpinnings are failing.”Mr. Celente puts part of the blame squarely on the federal government, and especially FED Chairman Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Geithner, and warns us not to believe a word they say “They’re the same people who didn't see it coming - are now telling us the worst is over, that ‘green shoots are spouting upwards’. But they were wrong before. They’re wrong on this too”.“When you pump out tons of money manure into this system based on nothing – printing press paper, it’s like giving a patient with a chronic disease a pain killer -- it won’t cure the patient.”“But let’s go beyond the economics. Our whole Constitution has been abrogated. The president simply writes an Executive Order to do whatever he wants. Nationalize the banks, take over the insurance industry, automobile industry, health care industry…None of it is constitutional.”When did the problem begin?“After Dwight Eisenhower -- our last great president -- the Allied Supreme Commander in WWII – who warned us of the dangers of the military-industrial complex. We've become completely corrupted.”“We became enmeshed in foreign entanglements. We forgot the lesson of England - and how their global imperial overreach destroyed their empire.” Of course, the average American doesn’t think that we’re an empire. We’re not like the classical empires of old - raping, pillaging and stealing the wealth of invaded peoples. What does Mr. Celente have to say about this?“What we’re doing is squandering our wealth, our resources, the genius of our scientists and the future of our children. We’re over-consuming in every way -- but under consuming our education and focusing on the quantity, not the quality, of what we’ve built. So much of today’s culture is counter-productive to what American built it’s foundation on -- a high-quality producing nation building things, not pushing paper. "And we’ve become not only a consumer society but a low-quality consumer, as well as the most obese society in the world, eating low-quality high-carb, high-fat processed foods.” “We’re now focused on the lowest cost, the lowest common denominator. Not the best and highest quality. We advertise buying cheapest as the most important thing.”Mr. Celente argues that we’ve socially destroyed our productivity and have abandoned it to other countries.“And we have fallen into a moral vacuum. Look at how people used to dress. Smartly. Not like the cheap hoods of today. Fashion now copies the lowest common denominator. Our children wear clothes without belts, and shoes without shoelaces, to copy the styles of the violent criminals -- who have these items removed by the police in prison so they can’t be used as weapons. That’s become the fashion statement of today’s youth. Like rap music from the ghetto. We’ve become an underdeveloped nation.”Mr. Celente observes that "people used to think of America as that shining beacon on the hill with 'liberty and justice for all…' ." So what happened?"Morality is missing from our American public consciousness. Start with Wall Street. It’s run by a criminal gang. The only question is ‘how much can you make, how much can you steal?’ At the bottom, the welfare recipient says ‘how much can I take?’ And the government is in on the take."“Morality is absolutely the issue. We had a government where we were taught all our lives that we are a free enterprise system -- so we depend on our own strength, our entrepreneurial ideas. The world used to look to us for our innovative spirit.”“This is being destroyed before our eyes. And our government has become more interventionist than any of the old empires could imagine.”"Our society is now based on consumption -- 70% of the GDP. This is more than we produce. So to pay our bills, we use funny money invented in 1913 with the creation of the Federal Reserve and the fiat dollar based on credit (debt) -- the fractional reserve system. In 1930's you bought what you could afford. You saved up to buy your home. The easy credit of the 90's has destroyed the country. Now you borrow what you can’t afford - and the nation’s done the same."Mr. Celente predicts the use of printing press money will cause the "greater depression". "I predict continuing deflation of real estate, followed by extreme currency inflation -- ultimately becoming worthless. This is why gold is the only honest money -- the government can't counterfeit it. Look for it to top at least $2000 an ounce""Our unemployment numbers are also bogus. For example, the construction industry is really above 20% , and the government is creating low-level jobs, not real jobs. The US total real unemployment is more like 16%. Before the crisis is over, it will reach 25% - great depression numbers.""When people have lost everything they have nothing to lose. Violence and crime will explode. Look at the OECD figures. The number of people not graduating from high school is exploding -- they're wacked out on drugs. New York City will look like Mexico City in a few years. The collapse of morality from top down -- and especially in the government -- makes it inevitable.""What can we expect in the coming future", we asked."Washington has declared 'Economic Martial Law'. Wall Street is putting Main Street out of business. The key to watch is Christmas sales. They’ll fail. Christmas will be when reality sets in.""Another trend we wrote about over 2 years ago was the tax revolt. What’s happened? Tax revenues have collapsed by 33%. And the wealthy people are leaving.""We predict state secessionist movements will rival the breakup of the Soviet Union.""The only way we can ever recover is to return to individual community, personal responsibility, local government. Next, average will disappear, Quality will return. Look at GM. Junk cars financed by junk bonds. Now owned by a junk government. As a consumer, don’t consume quantity -- consume quality.""How will it all end?", we queried. Will the dollar survive?"The dot com bubble should have burst and gone away in a short sharp recession. But the boys at the Fed re-inflated the economy by lowering interest rates to a 46 year low -- and in turn created the real estate bubble -- much bigger than the dot com bubble. ""Now they’re creating the bailout bubble -- which will ultimately dwarf the real estate bubble. It will cause the implosion of the global economy world wide -- which will not be able to be repaired by creating yet another bubble. Every time the government fails, it tells a bigger lie and then a still bigger lie.""These previous bubbles were not allowed to pop -- but they didn’t destroy the infrastructure of the country. This bailout bubble will.""But this bubble will be the last one. After the final blowout of the bailout bubble, we are concerned that the government will take the nation into war. This is a historical precedent that’s been done over and over again.""So, it’s not that the dollar that will survive. We may not even survive. Look at the German mess after WWI. It gave rise to Fascism and WWII. The next war will be fought with weapons of mass destruction."American 'Liberal Fascism' ? Is it possible? Jonah Goldberg's bestseller raised the alarm two years ago.
Mr. Easton teaches University economics and is passionate about technology and entrepreneurship. He is rosy about the long-term future: �The glass isn�t half full, it�s overflowing!�
Human Events
June 5, 2009
It’s the end of the world as the Greater Depression hits after 2010’s failed “W-recovery”Human Events had the opportunity to interview forecaster extraordinaire Gerald Celente, President of Trends Research Institute, several days ago -- and the future he predicts looks bleak indeed. In fact, as Mr. Celente sees it, the Great Depression will seem like a mild recession as what waits for us in 2011 hits with the force of a Katrina financial hurricane.In case you’re wondering who Mr. Celente is (if this is still possible), he’s appeared -- along with his predictions -- on Oprah, CNBC, Reuters, NBC, PBS, BBC, the Glenn Beck Show -- the list goes on an on. His Trends Report has been successfully predicting the major future trends impacting our lives for 3 decades, including calling the dot com crash back in the 1990's.Mr. Celente's forecast on our impending future is based on his study of history. He says we are bent on destroying our currency, bankrupting our government, and unleashing a violent citizen-against-citizen eruption as the economy collapses into chaos and martial law fascism. Quite a claim. And God help us if he is right -- again.“We’re sounding the alarm about the ongoing downward economic cycle”, Gerald told Human Events. “In 2002, we predicted that the collapse of the American empire would fall like the World Trade Center in a thunderous crash -- in slow motion before our eyes. And now it’s happening.”Mr. Celente follows over 300 trends: family, crime, war, education, consumer & business patterns which TRI synthesizes to predict the future.“The US is becoming a shadow of what it used to be. Take education for example. The OECD group of developed countries ranks quality of life, education, health care of its member nations. The US is now falling down the table as one piece of data after another shows America is in decline. We’re no longer Win, Place or Show in quality of life, education, longevity… all the essentials where we used to be #1. And our economic underpinnings are failing.”Mr. Celente puts part of the blame squarely on the federal government, and especially FED Chairman Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Geithner, and warns us not to believe a word they say “They’re the same people who didn't see it coming - are now telling us the worst is over, that ‘green shoots are spouting upwards’. But they were wrong before. They’re wrong on this too”.“When you pump out tons of money manure into this system based on nothing – printing press paper, it’s like giving a patient with a chronic disease a pain killer -- it won’t cure the patient.”“But let’s go beyond the economics. Our whole Constitution has been abrogated. The president simply writes an Executive Order to do whatever he wants. Nationalize the banks, take over the insurance industry, automobile industry, health care industry…None of it is constitutional.”When did the problem begin?“After Dwight Eisenhower -- our last great president -- the Allied Supreme Commander in WWII – who warned us of the dangers of the military-industrial complex. We've become completely corrupted.”“We became enmeshed in foreign entanglements. We forgot the lesson of England - and how their global imperial overreach destroyed their empire.” Of course, the average American doesn’t think that we’re an empire. We’re not like the classical empires of old - raping, pillaging and stealing the wealth of invaded peoples. What does Mr. Celente have to say about this?“What we’re doing is squandering our wealth, our resources, the genius of our scientists and the future of our children. We’re over-consuming in every way -- but under consuming our education and focusing on the quantity, not the quality, of what we’ve built. So much of today’s culture is counter-productive to what American built it’s foundation on -- a high-quality producing nation building things, not pushing paper. "And we’ve become not only a consumer society but a low-quality consumer, as well as the most obese society in the world, eating low-quality high-carb, high-fat processed foods.” “We’re now focused on the lowest cost, the lowest common denominator. Not the best and highest quality. We advertise buying cheapest as the most important thing.”Mr. Celente argues that we’ve socially destroyed our productivity and have abandoned it to other countries.“And we have fallen into a moral vacuum. Look at how people used to dress. Smartly. Not like the cheap hoods of today. Fashion now copies the lowest common denominator. Our children wear clothes without belts, and shoes without shoelaces, to copy the styles of the violent criminals -- who have these items removed by the police in prison so they can’t be used as weapons. That’s become the fashion statement of today’s youth. Like rap music from the ghetto. We’ve become an underdeveloped nation.”Mr. Celente observes that "people used to think of America as that shining beacon on the hill with 'liberty and justice for all…' ." So what happened?"Morality is missing from our American public consciousness. Start with Wall Street. It’s run by a criminal gang. The only question is ‘how much can you make, how much can you steal?’ At the bottom, the welfare recipient says ‘how much can I take?’ And the government is in on the take."“Morality is absolutely the issue. We had a government where we were taught all our lives that we are a free enterprise system -- so we depend on our own strength, our entrepreneurial ideas. The world used to look to us for our innovative spirit.”“This is being destroyed before our eyes. And our government has become more interventionist than any of the old empires could imagine.”"Our society is now based on consumption -- 70% of the GDP. This is more than we produce. So to pay our bills, we use funny money invented in 1913 with the creation of the Federal Reserve and the fiat dollar based on credit (debt) -- the fractional reserve system. In 1930's you bought what you could afford. You saved up to buy your home. The easy credit of the 90's has destroyed the country. Now you borrow what you can’t afford - and the nation’s done the same."Mr. Celente predicts the use of printing press money will cause the "greater depression". "I predict continuing deflation of real estate, followed by extreme currency inflation -- ultimately becoming worthless. This is why gold is the only honest money -- the government can't counterfeit it. Look for it to top at least $2000 an ounce""Our unemployment numbers are also bogus. For example, the construction industry is really above 20% , and the government is creating low-level jobs, not real jobs. The US total real unemployment is more like 16%. Before the crisis is over, it will reach 25% - great depression numbers.""When people have lost everything they have nothing to lose. Violence and crime will explode. Look at the OECD figures. The number of people not graduating from high school is exploding -- they're wacked out on drugs. New York City will look like Mexico City in a few years. The collapse of morality from top down -- and especially in the government -- makes it inevitable.""What can we expect in the coming future", we asked."Washington has declared 'Economic Martial Law'. Wall Street is putting Main Street out of business. The key to watch is Christmas sales. They’ll fail. Christmas will be when reality sets in.""Another trend we wrote about over 2 years ago was the tax revolt. What’s happened? Tax revenues have collapsed by 33%. And the wealthy people are leaving.""We predict state secessionist movements will rival the breakup of the Soviet Union.""The only way we can ever recover is to return to individual community, personal responsibility, local government. Next, average will disappear, Quality will return. Look at GM. Junk cars financed by junk bonds. Now owned by a junk government. As a consumer, don’t consume quantity -- consume quality.""How will it all end?", we queried. Will the dollar survive?"The dot com bubble should have burst and gone away in a short sharp recession. But the boys at the Fed re-inflated the economy by lowering interest rates to a 46 year low -- and in turn created the real estate bubble -- much bigger than the dot com bubble. ""Now they’re creating the bailout bubble -- which will ultimately dwarf the real estate bubble. It will cause the implosion of the global economy world wide -- which will not be able to be repaired by creating yet another bubble. Every time the government fails, it tells a bigger lie and then a still bigger lie.""These previous bubbles were not allowed to pop -- but they didn’t destroy the infrastructure of the country. This bailout bubble will.""But this bubble will be the last one. After the final blowout of the bailout bubble, we are concerned that the government will take the nation into war. This is a historical precedent that’s been done over and over again.""So, it’s not that the dollar that will survive. We may not even survive. Look at the German mess after WWI. It gave rise to Fascism and WWII. The next war will be fought with weapons of mass destruction."American 'Liberal Fascism' ? Is it possible? Jonah Goldberg's bestseller raised the alarm two years ago.
Mr. Easton teaches University economics and is passionate about technology and entrepreneurship. He is rosy about the long-term future: �The glass isn�t half full, it�s overflowing!�
Monday, March 30, 2009
Doctor doom: Gerald Celente on Weekly
For 2008, Gerald Celente predicts the total collapse of an already
damaged economy
By Steve HopkinsThese are the times that make Gerald Celente salivate. The Mid-Hudson region’s resident internationally-renowned talking head, Celente – and his alleged organization, the Trends Research Institute – are again swinging into high gear to herald what he has dubbed an “Economic 9/11,” a meltdown that sometime this year he claims will be equal to and perhaps surpass the devastation wrought by the Great Depression. Here’s a typical passage from his Winter 2008 issue of The Trends Journal newsletter, which should go down as a classic even amongst avid Celente collectors: “With the nation on the skids and heading down … and with bigger problems coming up on the horizon … the biggest media mouths were busy broadcasting primetime slime for endless hours about Anna Nicole Smith, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, lost Boy Scouts, kidnapped kids and the sexploits of Teachers Gone Wild. … Their minds saturated with junk news, bodies bloated on junk food, working non-stop, talking constantly, hardly listening, self indulged or just tuned out … the reasons for Americans being out of touch, ignorant of the facts and unprepared for what’s to come are academic. How they prepare to deal with the future is what will count. … But just as they didn’t see 9/11 coming and were frozen in shock when terror struck, they’ll be frozen in shock when terror strikes again.”
Yikes!
It’s the kind of stuff that warms the hearts of constitutionally pessimistic misanthropes such as myself, but doesn’t exactly endear itself to the American mainstream horde Celente has courted so effectively over the past decade and a half. The Trends Journal, available a from a post office box in Rhinebeck for $99 for a one-year on-line subscription, goes on to pontificate darkly about the coming economic meltdown. “Just as the Twin Towers collapsed from the top down, so too will the U.S. economy from an Economic 9/11, when the high-stakes speculators, banks, brokerages, and buyout firms that leveraged billions with millions get hit,” writes Celente, breaking down the carnage into easily digestible “trendposts,” including this priceless chestnut: “‘Self Storage’ will soon live up to the meaning of its name. Down and out, thrown onto the streets … homeless Americans will empty out storage lockers of useless junk … to store themselves. When Panic strikes, it will only be a matter of time and a question of survival before they move in. Whether on their own or with family in tow, living in concrete and steel 4x8s will be a step up from sleeping in the streets or risking a night at a homeless shelter.” As somebody who rents a 6x10 to store all the unclassified detritus from my former three-story Victorian house that I can’t stuff into a two-bedroom apartment, I feel somehow ahead of the curve on this one. Thanks, Gerald.
It feels like the truth, Oprah says
Celente, whom I interviewed early last week as stocks were tumbling from the mid-13,000s to almost 12,000, says the predicted economic apocalypse is already underway. Under pressure from President Bush, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernenke on Thursday of last week relented and alluded to another round of interest rate-lowering that temporarily kicked things out of a free-fall, but according to Celente, that sort of tinkering won’t do any good in the end.
But should we believe him? What are Celente’s credentials? His Web site doesn’t make clear where he learned his skills or who in the murky world of prognostication he admires; neither does he reference the work or thoughts of any professional colleagues or fellow experts. The man eschews footnotes. Besides the fact that he’s been on cable television news and talk shows more times than most retired two-star generals, Celente’s qualifications as a socioeconomic prognosticator include running a mayoral campaign in Yonkers, serving as executive assistant to the secretary of the New York State Senate and shuttling between Chicago and Washington D.C. as a “government affairs specialist” during the 1970s before becoming a “political atheist” in 1978 after hearing Jimmy Carter pronounce the about-to-be-disposed Shah of Iran “the island of stability in the Middle East.” This revelation prompted him to sink some of his money into gold and oil futures, and jump-started him on the path of using his newly tested analytical skills to create a cottage industry advising others how to profit by looking dispassionately at the numbers and other data without letting one’s feelings get in the way. “That’s how I was able to leave my job, and when I realized that if you keep following these things, current events form future trends,” says Celente for about the millionth time in his career. “So when you read all we’ve written, it’s all backed up with data.”
Still, it’s no picnic. Celente has carved out an almost impossible-to-fulfill niche for himself as a forecaster of the next big thing in economics, geopolitics and social change. A prisoner of his own middling success, when Celente is not on the road appearing on television shows and speaking before various trade groups and corporations for his bread and butter, he’s trapped in his sun-dappled John Street headquarters – the partially renovated former Mohican Market – for much of the week doing free telephone interviews with down-market radio stations. The author of several books including the bestselling “Trends 2000,” Celente is a relentless self-promoter who bristles angrily when he loses access to even the most pedestrian media outlet, as he did when Taconic Newspapers publisher Ira Fusfeld apparently decided to ban his periodic editorial contributions. “It was deemed that my views were unpalatable; the advertisers complained, and the publisher said they’re not being run,” seethes Celente. “Whoever did it in my estimation is a coward. What, are they afraid of hearing what I have to say? It’s disgusting.”
Celente is obviously no shrinking violet, and despite his slender resume seems to possess the ironclad sense of self-worth necessary to compete and even thrive on the mine-encrusted playing field of cable TV, commonly characterized by egotistical personalities mouthing over-the-top hubris in the most dumbed-down manner they can. Perhaps the most telling artifact in this respect is the nightmarish YouTube promo video showing Celente being interviewed and/or introduced on a slew of TV shows, including by Matt Lauer on Today; The O’Reilly Factor (“a guy that obviously knows his trends,” Bill O’Reilly gushes), and Oprah (who asks her audience, “Doesn’t this resonate with you? Doesn’t it feel like the truth?”) The thing devolves from a series of sound bites into a blizzard of jump cuts featuring all the introductions by helmet-haired anchor-people over the past 10 years, chanting: “Gerald Celente … Gerald Celente … Gerald Celente … Gerald Celente … Gerald Celente …” interspersed with the occasional lightning bolt intended to hasten the sense of unease. The voices are then spliced together into a frightening unison mass: “Gerald Celente! Gerald Celente!” as the images multiply and re-arrange themselves to fill a spinning globe. Talk about media overkill.
Anyway, whatever Celente is doing, it keeps him in food and drink and pays the bills, but is apparently insufficient to cover the considerable nut needed to fund his dream of converting the Mohican Market into a first-class eatery and hangout for the local glitterati, to be called Zizi’s after his stunning and tough-minded late aunt. “Culture and dignity … class … ethics … style … passion … respect,” intones Celente as he gives me a tour of the second floor of his domain. “Do me a favor, don’t walk on the cement, only because it carries the dust. This used to be an oven here before I got here. Mohican Markets, there was a chain of them on the East Coast. They were known for their breads. There were 13 of them, I understand. This becomes a boutique catering facility.”
Nobody’s perfect
Although he takes every opportunity to brag about the trends he has forecast – including the demise of the Soviet Union; the October 1987 world stock market crash; the current quagmire in Iraq (about which he stuck his neck out back in 2003, a month before the war began); the 2000 dotcom stock correction and his year’s real estate downturn – he doesn’t claim to be infallible. He admits to having wrongly bet against George W. Bush twice. Celente has a balanced, noncommittal early take on the upcoming presidential election cycle, which he likes to call the “Presidential Reality Show.” He’s not impressed by Barack Obama, substance-wise. “Obama has Oprah-quality production. And I’ve been on Oprah twice, so I know what Oprah-quality production looks like,” he says. “And I know that there’s not a moment when they don’t have Obama like this (poses presidentially) or like that (strikes another thoughtfully presidential pose). That whole speech that he gave – it made it seem like it was extemporaneous – and it was teleprompted. … Meanwhile, he’s a cipher. He voted for the Patriot Act.”
He’s also not convinced that manipulated events won’t tear into Obama’s obvious experiential weakness in foreign policy. A day before the New Hampshire primary, he offered this typically prescient assessment: “Having said that, now that we’re hearing more Iranian news, we’ll probably see a move back toward people like Hillary or John McCain – people who make us feel safe,” says Celente, before covering all his bases by predicting the possible emergence of a none-of-the-above dark horse into the race who could take it all. He’s more surefooted regarding his dire economic prognostications. He is certain that Wall Street will not be able to handle the disruptions it is encountering. “The panic is on. It’s on, it’s on; it’s now. The financial markets are unraveling at warp speed,” he says. Celente is easily every bit as glib on his feet as Sen. Obama, and without the teleprompter. Last Monday afternoon, I dropped back into his office while Celente was doing a radio interview with someone at 1610 AM in Pensacola, Fla., and heard virtually the same spiel he had given me an hour earlier, with minor variations in response to the business orientation of the interviewer, who was of course asking how to profit off the upcoming Doomsday scenario. “I believe gold prices are going to escalate way above $1,000 an ounce in the near term, and probably hit about $2,000 an ounce if not more,” says Celente, sitting behind a computer with nothing on it but a goofy screensaver. “Because, adjusted for inflation the gold price right now is about $860 an ounce. It should be around $2,000. And having said that, I began my career in D.C.; I began tracking and forecasting trends in the late 1970s, and I started buying into gold when the Iranian crisis broke out. I realized that current events form future trends, so I speculated that gold and oil futures would go up. And we’re saying the same thing now about gold futures.”
Garbage in, garbage out
During an interview of an hour and a half, Celente was personable and relentlessly engaging on any topic I brought up. He’s a music buff, and wants to install a house band of young players in Zizi’s, to play classic jump-style blues from the ’40s and early ’50s on the donated drums and a nice-sounding Steinway spinet. He’s not just a doom-and-gloom prophet, but espouses a reasonable-sounding agenda for making things right, including an emphasis on quality over quantity. “Slim down, America. Cut the fat,” he chides the Pensacola radio audience. “Cut the fat out of the budget, cut the fat out of your diets, and really go back to small. Smaller in every way. Buy local. Build quality, and support local in every way you can. That goes for food as well. Microfarms. A great opportunity for investment; people are looking for higher quality product.”
“I’m talking to you now from Kingston, New York,” he says, giving props to his adopted home base. “It was the former capital of New York State in the Revolutionary days. And I’m in this beautiful, beautiful local community right off the most historic four corners in these United States; the only place where on each corner there’s a building from the 17th century made of stone. These are the kind of communities; because right out from me, there are farms. There are cheese processors, and the local farmers’ markets thrive.
“We’re in the USSA,” he continues, coining a phrase that probably won’t ever be repeated, not that he really cares. “Just like back in the days of the Soviet Union, in the USSR. They’re doing the same kind of things. When you look at the government numbers, for example, they don’t add in food – for which prices have gone up over 25 percent in the last year – and fuel – oil prices have gone up some 60 percent year to date. They don’t add those numbers into core inflation. This is criminal; it’s criminal activity. And the government is taking over the country in a lot of different ways, so people have to take steps themselves. They have to stop buying a lot of garbage that they don’t need. And here’s a country with self-storage units? This is something unique around the world; nobody’s ever heard of such a thing. So we have to start cutting back, we have to start doing a lot of smart things and becoming more locally involved. Because if a lot of people do little things collectively, big things can happen. And I believe the vacuum is so big right now; that it can be filled with anything.”
Good luck with that, Gerald. At least you’re out there trying. Me, I’m going to take that extra two Gs out of what’s left of my Roth IRA and try to score a couple of ounces of gold while there’s still time. If there’s any change from the deal I’ll run over to Gander Mountain and plunk it down on an AK-47 knockoff and a couple of 30-round clips of ammo, just in case.
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