Celente Flashback: Great Recession Will Maintain Grip for a Generation

For those new to the forecasting experitse of Gerald Celente, we bring you a flashback to a 2004 Trends Journal forecast:

The “Great Recession” as it will become known by 2007, will maintain its grip for at least a generation. Consumer bankruptcy filings, running at about 1.55 million in 2003, will more than double, home foreclosures will skyrocket, businesses of all sizes will collapse and government debt will soar as the income stream from tax sources shrink.

-Trends Journal 2004

Mr. Celente may have been off by 6 - 12 months, as most people did not realize we were in a recession in 2007 because of a heck of a job by the media to keep it under wraps, but the forecast was pretty spot-on. Even throughout 2005, 2006 and early 2006, with the the bubble-boom in full swing, Gerald Celente’s Trends Research Institute stuck with their forecast. The following excerpt, from the Autumn 2009 Trends Journal (Released October 10, 2009) gives us some insight as to why:

When the accumulated data force a conclusion that runs counter to popular opinion and perceived wisdom, it's essential to stick to your guns.

A case in point: back in 2009, popular opinion and the perceived wisdom was that recovery was on the way. But the accumulated data indicated a cover up, not a recovery. The collapsing economy was being propped up by giant pillars made of paper money, printed out of thin air and backed by nothing. But just as before, a majority, egged on by the media and the government, dismissed the hard facts because the big lie was more comfortable.

The data is clear - and it is REAL. The US (and nations around the world) are printing money with reckless abandon. We are bailing out insolvent institutions that should have failed long ago. The credit engine in the United States of America has seized up. Millions are losing their jobs. Homes are being foreclosed on in record numbers, with one foreclosure filing, on average, happening every 13 seconds. Consumer spending is dropping like a rock.

Popular opinion would have you believe the world is recovering. Contrary opinion, supported by facts, suggests we are not coming out of a recession, but rather, diving further into the Greatest Depression.

Comments

[Roger Knights:]

"we are not coming out of a recession, but rather, diving further into the Greatest Depression."

Right; as I like to comment on articles that say the recession has ended, "The recession is over; the depression has begun." I.e., after a pause to shift gears, debt-driven deleveraging is getting into second gear.

Oct 13 06:50 AM

[The Geoffster:]

I love the smell of napalm in the morning.
- Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore
"The data is clear - and it is REAL. The US (and nations around the world) are printing money with reckless abandon. We are bailing out insolvent institutions that should have failed long ago. The credit engine in the United States of America has seized up. Millions are losing their jobs. Homes are being foreclosed on in record numbers, with one foreclosure filing, on average, happening every 13 seconds. Consumer spending is dropping like a rock."

Oct 13 10:12 AM

[OnToBigAndB...:]

We are a long way from the bottom. As jobs continue to disappear in record numbers, the domino effect will grow as professional services start to close up shop due to the lack of patients and clients. More homes will be boarded up and more people will suffer financial hardships. There is a distinctive downward spiral happening rapidly from Michigan all of the way to California. If you don't believe it, ask someone who has lost their 30 plus year, six figure job and take a look at their once middle class neighborhood. I see many, many foreclosures in th horizon because it's happening all around me. What America drives, drives America.

Oct 14 07:12 AM

[moonbat1775:]

All because of an obsolete, crooked banking model invented before 1694.

Oct 14 08:17 AM

[DLWrightsman:]

One must believe that Joseph Gobbels is laughing in his grave witnessing what has to be the greatest propaganda scheme of all time being played by the world leaders and their mass media complex. Even today I hear coworkers argue that all is well when in the simple blink of an eye the picture is bleak.

Oct 14 10:10 AM

[Glen L.:]

Celente is familiar with Austrian school economics, so it was relatively easy for him to perceive that the US economy was being driven by Fed-blown bubbles which must deflate eventually. All the Austrian schoolers predicted much the same (Peter Schiff, for one), but almost all are dismissed and ignored by the mainstream. America will prosper once again when the Austrian school's business cycle theory, which is an improved version of classical economics and stands in total opposition to the Keynesian nonsense that drives economic policy today, is learned and promoted by a critical mass of economists.

We are still a long way from that great day, but it is coming.

Oct 14 10:31 AM

[gmiller:]

Part of the problem-- find out why why it won't be getting better any time soon.... read "The Obama Timeline" (see colony14.net )

Oct 14 11:41 AM

[keb:]

This will be the only Real money left....Time is running out

Oct 14 11:08 PM

[John Bowman:]

There was a time in my life (well maybe 5 minutes of it) when I believed that Americans were educated enough to foresee the consequences of bad decisions made by government authorities or could see through the hype of certain influential celebrities.

I don't know if it's information overload coupled with busy lifestyles, our poor educational system or that many citizens enjoy fairy tales. But it is frightening that so-called doom and gloom forecasters like Celente are immediately dismissed by so many.

Unfortunately, the day of reckoning, which has been postponed for a year or two will come upon us and affect everyone both rich and poor. And I am sure that the masses will riot and act like barbarians regardless of what little education they have accrued.

And because our collective sense of entitlement has increased exponentially, the scenario of future events is just plain scary.

Oct 15 07:40 AM

[Yarak:]

One thought of balance - if indeed all countries are printing money, then there is a chance things will not end in utter disaster, because the USD will retain some relative value to other currencies.

In fact, this may be the more likely outcome. All countries will inflate. The US may inflate more than most or all, but at this point in history it may be considered "too big to fail". The escape valve in all this is that this worldwide inflation will be a tax on the world's low and middle classes, who will pay with their labor for large transfers of real wealth to the rich. In other words, the rich can afford to buy assets at depressed prices, operate in the asset markets, etc, while the middle-class and poor hang on to their rapidly devaluing cash.

Utter collapse and breakdown is a possibility, but an unlikely one. It is much more likely that the rich control the outcome to come out on top, and the masses appeased. This game suits them just fine and they don't want the hassle of revolutions that may break the game. Their agent, worldwide, is the invisible thief of inflation.

Oct 15 09:21 AM

[ebworthen:]

Agreed.

Here is the problem:

"Monkey...want...banana."

Timmy and Ben and their Gold Slacks friends have theirs, the politicians and bankers have theirs, and the average citizen has one bruised and blackened banana with visions of ripening clusters in the trees on the territory of Wall Street and Washington.

"Trust Us" they say, "There is enough for everyone".

Uh-huh...


On Oct 15 07:40 AM John Bowman wrote:

> There was a time in my life (well maybe 5 minutes of it) when I believed
> that Americans were educated enough to foresee the consequences of
> bad decisions made by government authorities or could see through
> the hype of certain influential celebrities.
>
> I don't know if it's information overload coupled with busy lifestyles,
> our poor educational system or that many citizens enjoy fairy tales.
> But it is frightening that so-called doom and gloom forecasters like
> Celente are immediately dismissed by so many.
>
> Unfortunately, the day of reckoning, which has been postponed for
> a year or two will come upon us and affect everyone both rich and
> poor. And I am sure that the masses will riot and act like barbarians
> regardless of what little education they have accrued.
>
> And because our collective sense of entitlement has increased exponentially,
> the scenario of future events is just plain scary.

Oct 15 11:00 AM

[SeekingTruth:]

Agree that the situation is much more serious than most people perceive, and that we are in a Depression in reality although it is an "offset" Depression right now which is temporarily offset by stimulus i.e. the printing of vast amounts of money.
I am not pro or anti Keynesian, as I believe there is a great deal of political exploitation and expediency coupled with Corporate crookedness and Banksterism masquerading as conventional Keynesianism.
There has been too much damage to our economic foundation and core values with no satisfactory strategy or ability to right them without a great deal more pain and suffering yet to come.
Optimistic and rosy rhetoric that I hear every day will not do the trick this time.
It's going to take a great deal more than rhetoric, and we collectively as a nation are not providing it.

Oct 15 08:30 PM

[goldbug101:]

All those who throw around "hyperinflation" as if it is only a matter of time don't realize:

(1) What real hyperinflation is ($150,000 can of Coke)

(2) What hoarding money at the Fed and TBTF banks indicates (lots of unmarked losses and toxic assets waiting to be realized)

(3) People who don't have a job can't afford a $150,000 can of Coke

Oct 15 10:03 PM

[Michael Clark:]

Many of us DO know the truth this time. What happened to those who knew the truth last time? Prepare for anger at the Bears, the one's who are refusing to be saved by the 'recovery'. First stage: DENIAL; second stage: ANGER...

2019. I've said it once. I say it again. In 2019, we will find a bottom; and the Spirit of Expansion will be re-born. Expansion won't really gain strength again until 2028. Then we will have anotehr Golden Age from 2028 - 2037.

Economic cycles are predictable. Why, otherwise, would Greenspan have panicked the way he did back at the real top of the expansion, 2001? He was standing at the abyss, he saw the future and the nature of the decline coming....and he panicked, pushing down rates like a drunken sailor unwill to face the truth....


On Oct 14 10:10 AM DLWrightsman wrote:

> One must believe that Joseph Gobbels is laughing in his grave witnessing
> what has to be the greatest propaganda scheme of all time being played
> by the world leaders and their mass media complex. Even today I
> hear coworkers argue that all is well when in the simple blink of
> an eye the picture is bleak.

Oct 17 06:46 AM

[User 257852:]

Allow me to add a further perspective here.

I'm a progressive that voted for Obama but am disillusioned to the the degree to which Keynesian economics is being relied upon to reinflate the economy to continue with business as usual.

I'm also an ecology major and read enough of scientifc journals to know that we have massive problems with both the availability of natural resources both renewable and not (fresh water, rare-earth minerals, oil, fish) and with pollution (greenhouse gases, invasive species, phosphate and nitrogen pollution, massive species extinction).

There seems to be practically no acknowledgement of limits in the current mainstream discourse. People like Peter Schiff or Gerald Celente are interesting perspectives on the corrosive problems with debt and their points are well taken. However, they do not seem to recognize that what we call "the economy" takes place on a planet with finite resource flows. Until we reconsile the human economy with this finite planet we will remain on a course that will collapse our industrial economy and critically harm the fresh water, soils, air and climate systems. We need a broader discussion in economics and about what kind of "recovery" we want.

Oct 20 07:10 PM