Predictions and Forecasts

If you don't believe what you're hearing from the rabbis, perhaps a more "expert" opinion will be more to your benefit.

Gerald Celente, "world leader in trends forecasting," has a solid reputation in the business world as the one to consult about future trends. Some of his predictions included: the 1987 stock market crash; the fall of the Soviet Union; and, the rise of terrorism.

Here is an excerpt from an interview in which he explains what he foresees for America in the near term:

What Could 2009 America Look Like?

...YOU HAVE BEEN SO ACCURATE SINCE 2007 IN CALLING EXACTLY WHAT HAS UNFOLDED IN 2008. COULD YOU HELP THE GENERAL NORTH AMERICAN AUDIENCE UNDERSTAND WHAT THE TRENDS JOURNAL AND INSTITUTE WOULD SEE IN DETAIL AS WE GO FORWARD NOW FROM OCTOBER 2008 TO OCTOBER 2009?

First, we have to remember there are many wild cards that are thrown on the deck that nobody can ever anticipate and that’s why nobody can really predict the future. You can see the face of it, but you really never know what’s going to happen (in detail).

Having said that, there might be wars. Geopolitical tensions are always coming to light just as happened this past summer with Georgia invading South Ossettia and the belligerency shown by the United States on behalf of Georgia in support of their invasion. So that was the beginning of a new Cold War. How is that going to play out? We’re not sure. But here’s what we know, for example, about that. We know when that happened, the Russian stock market collapsed and it has not recovered since. So, the Russians are very angry at America for having instigated that war, as the Russians believe. So, we don’t know all the geopolitical tensions.

If things remain constant on the economic and political fronts, what we’re going to see in the beginning of the New Year 2009 is a very cold winter. February and March 2009 are going to be very, very bleak. We’re going to see the depression really start to set in.

WHAT IS YOUR DEFINITION OF A DEPRESSION?

We don’t go by unemployment numbers. They reached almost 25% in the last Depression of 1929. Now, there will be masses of working poor doing two to three jobs just to make ends meet, plus you’re going to have a lot of people unemployed as well – probably in the 15% level at least. Again, the numbers are cooked all the time because what happens is that once a person is no longer looking for work and their unemployment benefits have run out, the government no longer counts them as unemployed!

Again, the United Soviet States of America! Just as the bureaucrats don’t include energy and food into the core inflation numbers.

Mall and Retail Store Collapses

This whole notion that we need a Wall Street is a fallacy because Wall Street killed Main Street by giving all the real estate developers money and special tax breaks and grants given by the cities and states to build all these huge malls and outlets that have sapped the vitality out of Main Street. That vitality is going to be re-invigorated and it’s going to start now in the New Year 2009. You’re going to see more vitality spring up in the dead areas because we’re only talking now in the media about the financial collapses. Let’s start talking about the retail collapses that are going to follow soon. You’re going to see big name retailers buckle under and go under. You’re going to see malls become ghost malls.
Desperate People, Tent Cities, Rise in Crime
It’s going to be very bleak. Very sad. And there is going to be a lot of homeless, the likes of which we have never seen before. Tent cities are already sprouting up around the country and we’re going to see many more.

We did a piece about self-storage units really taking on the true meaning of their name. People are going to start living in these things and it’s going to be better than living in a tent out in the street or risking your life in a homeless shelter.

We’re going to start seeing huge areas of vacant real estate and squatters living in them as well. It’s going to be a picture the likes of which Americans are not going to be used to. It’s going to come as a shock and with it, there’s going to be a lot of crime. And the crime is going to be a lot worse than it was before because in the last 1929 Depression, people’s minds weren’t wrecked on all these modern drugs – over-the-counter drugs, or crystal meth or whatever it might be. So, you have a huge underclass of very desperate people with their minds chemically blown beyond anybody’s comprehension.

... we’re going to go through a period of hyper-inflation the likes of which we have never seen before. The government is just printing money on a daily basis. They are just manufacturing it out of thin air! So, we’re going to see hyper-inflation, the kind you used to see in Argentina and Brazil when they went through currency crises.

...2009 Inflation

THE PRACTICAL ISSUE OF PRINTING ALL OF THIS MONEY TO GET US OUT OF ONE HOLE PUTS US IN THE INFLATION HOLE WHERE PRICES ON GOODS IN THE UNITED STATES – THEY MIGHT BE AFFORDABLE TO US, BUT IF WE TOOK OUR MONEY OUT INTO THE REST OF THE WORLD, TO EUROPE, FOR EXAMPLE, THE AMOUNT OF MONEY THAT EVERYTHING IS GOING TO COST US THERE IS OVERWHELMING AND PEOPLE WILL STOP TRAVELING?

Oh, absolutely. It’s already happening and it’s just going to get worse. We have to understand that even the numbers the federal bureaucrats are talking about - $700 billion and $250 billion for the banks, it’s peanuts compared to the credit default swaps, which nobody knows what the heck they are, including myself. They are $ 353 trillion dollars. I mean, you can’t make up a number like that! That’s only in credit default swaps, the derivatives.

Then you start looking at commercial real estate. When is that going to collapse? When are all the over-built stores? We have been over-stored in this country for over a decade. So, you’re going to start seeing a huge commercial real estate collapse.

The sub prime problem is only about $ 2 trillion at best compared to the rest, but it’s an easy target because the bureaucrats can blame all those irresponsible little people for borrowing more than they should have.

How about all those leveraged buy outs such as the Carlisle Group, Blackstone, Cerberus – they bought things like Chrysler and that Hilton chain with no money down! That’s where a big unraveling is going to come.

BUT IS THIS GOVERNMENT IN THE NEW PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIALISM GOING TO ALLOW THOSE CORPORATIONS TO COLLAPSE? OR ARE THEY (BUREAUCRATS) JUST GOING TO KEEP PROPPING EVERYTHING UP IN THIS KIND OF ALICE IN WONDERLAND WORLD?

They are going to try, but it’s not going to work. This is a temporary fix. They don’t have enough money to do it.

The only power they have is to print cheap money; the more cheap money they print, the worse hyper-inflation gets; the worse hyper-inflation gets, the more people become angry; the angrier people get, the more tax revolts; and that’s when we’ll see a new system. This country was built on tax revolts and it’s going to happen again. We’re only at the beginning stages of this change.

You talked about an Alice In Wonderland world, if private enterprise messes it up as bad as they did (laughs), who in their right mind would think a government that has only proven Katrina quality rescue skills can do something better? I mean, we’re losing two wars. Our health care system is in shambles. Our education system no longer wins, places or shows worldwide. They still have a hole in the ground where the World Trade Centers used to stand. The levies (New Orleans) have not been fixed. And neither have the voting machines!

When we went through the 1929 Depression, Wall Street was hated! They didn’t recuperate until the mid-1950s. So, we’re going to see the same thing. There’s going to be a huge government backlash, particularly for the Democrat and Republican parties and against Wall Street.

Figure in the repercussions from the following report and the picture it paints is troubling to say the least:

After Obama's win, white backlash festers in US


...The election of America's first black president has triggered more than 200 hate-related incidents, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center – a record in modern presidential elections. Moreover, the white nationalist movement, bemoaning an election that confirmed voters' comfort with a multiracial demography, expects Mr. Obama's election to be a potent recruiting tool – one that watchdog groups warn could give new impetus to a mostly defanged fringe element.

Most election-related threats have so far been little more than juvenile pranks. But the political marginalization of certain Southern whites, economic distress in rural areas, and a White House occupant who symbolizes a multiethnic United States could combine to produce a backlash against what some have heralded as the dawn of a postracial America. In some parts of the South, there's even talk of secession.

"Most of this movement is not violent, but there is a substantive underbelly that is violent and does try to make a bridge to people who feel disenfranchised," says Brian Levin of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. "The question is: Will this swirl become a tornado or just an ill wind? We're not there yet, but there's dust on the horizon, a swirling of wind, and the atmospherics are getting put together for [conflict]."