Universal Ramblings

Although America’s hopes are running high that Barack Obama will navigate the troubled ship of state to better times,”Trend Seer” Gerald Celente (the name bestowed upon him by USA Today in 2001) predicts disappointing results for the President Elect in 2009. “Minor victories; major failures” says Celente, Director of The Trends Research Institute.

Celente looks carefully at Barack Obama’s history; his post election actions and administration choices and at the tumultuous global situation confronting him. Celente provides a sweeping, yet realistic picture of what to expect from the Obama Administration:

Disastrous failure in the financial sphere that preoccupies the planet. (Ambitious job creation and infrastructure programs notwithstanding.)
Worsening military quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Moderate progress in environmental, scientific, judicial, labor and other domestic initiatives.
Possible but problematic restoration of America’s battered foreign image.

Celente’s three decades of accurate forecasts make him a voice worth heeding. There is a lot more of the “Obamarama” forecast to read about in the Top Trends 2009 edition of the Trends Journal, which also includes:

The Collapse of ‘09: Markets will tumble and major businesses will fail.

The Greatest Depression: Worse than the 1930’s Depression. Why?

Revolution: What will be the spark that ignites it? Who will fire the shot heard around the world?

Obamarama: High hopes, broken promises: Some victories, major failures.

Economic Slim-Fast: Like it or not, Americans will go on a spending diet and food diet.
Bush Gardens: Lawns out, Edible Landscaping in. Why Bush Gardens?

Whole Health Healing: 2009 marks a year of “attitude change” for the on-trend health aware.

Little People Squeeze: Politicians will put the financial squeeze on the already squeezed.
Regenerative Medicine: The time is ripe for stem cells to come out of the laboratory and into the clinic.

That’s Entertainment: Lifting spirits – and drinking them – will be big business and major pastimes during the Greatest Depression.

College Crash: Following the equity market meltdown, the real estate bust and the retail unraveling, comes the college crash.

Gerald Celente, the CEO of Trends Research Institute, is renowned for his accuracy in predicting future world and economic events, which will send a chill down your spine considering what he told Fox News this week.

Celente says that by 2012 America will become an undeveloped nation, that there will be a revolution marked by food riots, squatter rebellions, tax revolts and job marches, and that holidays will be more about obtaining food, not gifts.

“We’re going to see the end of the retail Christmas….we’re going to see a fundamental shift take place, putting food on the table is going to be more important that putting gifts under the Christmas tree,” said Celente, adding that the situation would be “worse than the great depression”.

“America’s going to go through a transition the likes of which no one is prepared for,” said Celente, noting that people’s refusal to acknowledge that America was even in a recession highlights how big a problem denial is in being ready for the true scale of the crisis.

Celente, who successfully predicted the 1997 Asian Currency Crisis, the subprime mortgage collapse and the massive devaluation of the U.S. dollar, told UPI in November last year that the following year would be known as “The Panic of 2008,” adding that “giants (would) tumble to their deaths,” which is exactly what we have witnessed with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and others.

He also said that the dollar would eventually be devalued by as much as 90 per cent.

The consequence of what we have seen unfold this year would lead to a lowering in living standards, Celente predicted a year ago, which is also being borne out by plummeting retail sales figures.

The prospect of revolution was a concept echoed by a British Ministry of Defense report last year, which predicted that within 30 years, the growing gap between the super rich and the middle class, along with an urban underclass threatening social order would mean, “The world’s middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest,” and that, “The middle classes could become a revolutionary class.”

In a separate recent interview, Celente went further on the subject of revolution in America.

“There will be a revolution in this country,” he said. “It’s not going to come yet, but it’s going to come down the line and we’re going to see a third party and this was the catalyst for it: the takeover of Washington, D. C., in broad daylight by Wall Street in this bloodless coup. And it will happen as conditions continue to worsen.”

“The first thing to do is organize with tax revolts. (No taxation without representation). That’s going to be the big one because people can’t afford to pay more school tax, property tax, any kind of tax. You’re going to start seeing those kinds of protests start to develop.”

“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’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.”