SilverMagnet
10th December 2010, 02:26 AM
Excerpts from the Summer 2010 Edition of the Trends Journal by Gerald Celente:
Civil War to “Great War” In the summer
of 2012, as the world moves ever closer to the “Great War,”
the immediate threat to America looks more like civil war.
The two political parties, themselves fractured, are more
polarized then ever. The schisms that began with Tea Parties
and Tax Protests in 2009 would culminate in disuniting
the United States into multiple irreconcilable factions.
With most revolutions, civil wars and world wars, there
is no single defining cause. Politics always plays a role, but
not necessarily the defining role. The 2nd American Revolution
contains elements of both the War for Independence
and the War Between the States. As with both, there
was more than one issue behind the chaos and discontent.
With civil war brewing and politicians playing one faction
against the other, the media will oversimplify the discontent
to paint it as a clearly defined “North vs. South”
ideological battle. It is not. Yes, the Union itself is in jeopardy,
but on a grander scale. The too-small-to-saves are
rising to confront the too-big-to-fails. Champions of State
Sovereignty are challenging Federal Rule. It’s the police
state vs. mass civil disobedience; martial law vs. Constitutional
Law.
Trend Forecast: Just as many nations were defaulting on
sovereign debt, so too, would many states. With taxes already
raised to incendiary levels, states were refusing to
finance federal programs which returned little or nothing
to them (e.g., education) and/or ran against the wishes
of their constituencies … wars, foreign aid, subsidies, the
huge, ever-increasing defense budget, etc.
The Second Vermont Republic, virtually unknown in
2009, was no longer a long-shot nor a joke. Their manifesto
made sense to many.
And they weren’t alone. Calls for secession and regionalization
would reach ballot boxes by 2012. Rebelling against
dictates that had been imposed by the Federal government
but opposed by the people, single states and regional movements
were fomenting secession.
Empire America was under siege. That was the real news.
But with a black man running for reelection and immigration
a complementary front-burner issue, swarms of “useful
idiots” would be suckered into a politically engineered
and media promoted racial propaganda trap — making it
appear a “black and white” issue.
Back In The USSR The world was coming apart
at the seams, but to the US, still living in its “We’re #1”
illusion, “over there” was a world away. America’s leaders
and media, with their ingrained sense of moral superiority,
were incapable of contemplating even the possibility
that the great Union could suffer the same fate as the
Soviet Union.
While the many glaring differences between the two
political systems had been exhaustively publicized — especially
in the United States — the glaring similarities went
unnoticed.
As in the disintegrating USSR, the USA infrastructure
was as rotten as its political system. Having forced through
globalizing legislation that turned a once vibrant nation of
tradesmen, craftsmen, farmers, shop keepers, blue-collar
workers and manufacturers into a low-wage service society
of health care aides, shelf-stockers, cashiers, office serfs
and clerks. Even America’s work ethic was beginning to
turn Soviet: “We pretend to work. They pretend to pay us.”
Similarities did not stop there. Corporate executive or
Communist commissar — the names, faces and uniforms
were different, but they were economically and politically
much the same. Pay, perks and power were increasingly
concentrated at the top, while below, resentment seethed
and mounted.
The USSR, in its waning days of Empire, squandered
its finite resources fighting and losing a Cold War while
running a losing arms race.
The USA, in its waning days of Empire, squandered its
greater but still finite resources on a gargantuan defense
budget, fighting unwinnable hot wars and feeding an insatiable
military stationed on hundreds of bases worldwide.
In an ironic twist of history, both Empires would be
brought down by sipping from the same Afghan final straw.
(See “Losers, Liars, Lost Causes,” page 18)
UNCLE SAM, UNCLE JOE
Of course, outwardly, 20th century Soviet Russia and early
21st century USA appeared centuries and worlds apart.
Under Stalinist communism there was no pretense to
freedom of speech or movement, while in the US democracy,
the First Amendment was a cherished tradition and
people have always been more or less free to criticize at will.
In Russia 2010, investigative journalists digging too
deeply might have been digging their own graves. Dissenters,
whistle blowers and opposing interests, as in the old
days, did so at their own peril.
In the US, although freedom of speech and dissent may
have been tolerated, in practice the end result was no different.
Regardless of who was in power — Republicans or
Democrats — the people had little say in any matter of consequence.
The government did as it pleased.
The President’s harshest Republican/Conservative
political and media critics were labeling
Obamarule as Marxism/Communism/
Socialism. But Uncle Sam did not look at
all like Uncle Joe. His descent into totalitarianism
wore the face of Fascism. “Fascism
should more appropriately be called
Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate
power,” opined Benito Mussolini, generally regarded as an
authority on the subject.
Americans were spoon-fed since infancy the Gospel of
Capitalism: “An economic system characterized by private
or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments
that are determined by private decision, and by prices,
production, and the distribution of goods that are determined
mainly by competition in a free market.”
While the capitalistic reality never quite lived up to its
definition, America had been, more so than any other nation
on earth, the land of opportunity. While there were
always race, gender and religious barriers, realizing the
American Dream was a possibility open to all willing to
work for it.
However, long before 2012, though still packaged with
its same Red, White & Blue label, the ingredients bore no
resemblance to the original recipe.
While the principles of equality may have prevailed
in many sociopolitical fields, in the US, all men were not
created equal. The economic formula had changed even
though the words had not. It was now, “The bigger you are,
the bigger the breaks.”
Too-big-to-fail? What fascist made that up? Tax breaks
for the richest. Loan guarantees and grants only for the
connected. Sweetheart deals and subsides only for the biggest
players in the richest industries — Big Oil, Big Pharma,
Agribusiness, Big Airlines, Defense Contractors, Big
Banks and Brokerages and Big Insurance — not only was
everyone else on their own, Big Brother took their taxes to
enrich Big Friends.
After the rounds of bailouts, rescues and stimulus plans
that bailed out, rescued and stimulated only the Bigs, public
anger was rising. Determined to keep playing the game,
cover their losses and retain Big Bonuses, Congress again
came to the rescue, but with a deft Orwellian sleight of
nomenclature, concealed its true identity from the public.
It was called the “Restoring American Financial Stability
Act of 2010” and was peddled to the public as a bill
that would improve accountability and transparency in
the financial system, protect taxpayers by putting an end
to bailouts, and protect consumers from abusive financial
services practices.
Absent from the “peddle” (in the Congressional synopsis)
was the itsy-bitsy, minor little detail of the $4 trillion
earmarked as a guarantee to bail out troubled institutions
should the need arise. Despite the Act’s name, it was no
more than another pledge to soak the people
and bail out the Bigs.
Every government measure taken benefited
only the Biggest, consolidating business
and industry at the top. Through a
combination of deregulation and political
favoritism, freedom was taken out of the free market, making
it next to impossible for the entrepreneur to compete.
At every level, the Bigs kept getting bigger.
For example: in 1994, the six biggest financial institutions
held assets equivalent to 20 percent of the US economy.
When the “Panic of ’08” hit, they held 58 percent. By
2010, they held 62 percent. Three Big Banks controlled
two-thirds of the legal extortion racket otherwise known as
the credit card business. The same drive to consolidation
at the top applied to every major aspect of the American
economy.
These were not academic percentages divorced from
daily life. When the richest 10 percent of the country have
or control 93 percent of all financial wealth, there is only 7
percent left to divvy up between the remaining 90 percent
of the populace.
By 2012, the garish imbalance was no longer a soulless
statistic or a thin slice on a pie chart. Heavily taxed, foreclosed,
harassed, working for little or unemployed … that
beleaguered and increasingly resentful 90 percent wanted
a bigger piece of the pie.
SQUEEZE THE LITTLE PEOPLE
Variations of the same story were playing out around the
world. Turmoil in Thailand. Worker strikes in China. General
strikes in India. From the streets of Greece, Hungary,
Romania … to plantations in Panama, across the globe the
people were protesting. While the motivations appeared
different, at the core, a common thread linked them:
the rich were getting richer, and everyone else was being
squeezed or starved.
But in the summer of 2010, the universal rumblings
were either not being heard, were misinterpreted as isolat-
ed and unrelated incidents — or dismissed by purveyors of
optimism opium as fleeting phenomena that would cease
as the economy recovered:
Jobs Will Give Boost as Stimulus
Ends, Greenlaw Says
July 6 (Bloomberg) — Job growth will sustain
the U.S. economic recovery even as government
fiscal stimulus ends, according to David Greenlaw,
Morgan Stanley’s chief fixed-income economist in
New York.
Morgan Stanley expects “moderate, sustainable
growth, a rebound in private credit demands,
a bottoming in inflation and a Fed that begins to
implement its exit strategy.”
By any recognized measure, the data would not justify such
optimism — or any optimism.
Of all of the indicators, the most prominent from Wall
Street’s perspective is the stock market, which in 2010 began
on a modest down note and remained essentially flat.
The old adage, “As goes January, so goes the year” was
living up to its reputation. Historically, it is one of the year’s
strongest months. Nearly 80 percent of the time, if January
is positive the markets will rise over the course of the year.
By putting the most positive possible spin on the data,
the brokers and touts were promoting the stagnant stock
market as a “buying opportunity.” Their own livelihoods
depended on keeping the gamblers inside the casino. After
plummeting from its 14,000 high in 2007, the Dow had
recovered to its 1999 trading range of 10,000.
But 10,000 in 2010 was not the same as 10,000 in 1999.
In the intervening decade, the Consumer Price Index had
risen by some 60 points. For the market to be worth in
buying power what it had been worth a decade earlier, the
Dow would have been trading above 14,000.
It wasn’t as though this was some actuarial secret, but
if you were following the financial news you would have
been hard put to find an expert talking about the Dow
indexed for inflation.
“The market is very oversold,” said Paul Zemsky of
ING Investment Management, which oversaw $550 billion
when the market tipped past 10,000 in early July.
“The improvement in retail sales numbers was enough to
get some people back in. Over the next few weeks, we’ll
probably get both economic and earnings data that will
show that we’re not going to go back into recession.”
ECONOMIC ALZHEIMERS
Multi-billionaire Warren Buffett, regaled as the “Oracle
of Omaha” and revered by the business media for his insatiable
lust for ever more money, in early summer made
the recovery official. “The economy is coming back, no
question in my mind,” he said.
Yet, with all the stimulus, with all the trillions in bailouts,
tax incentives, “cash for clunkers” … the best that
could be said for the market in mid-2010 was at least the
worst hadn’t happened.
But the worst would happen by 2011. And as always,
those that didn’t see the crash coming would claim that
since such people as Buffett the “Sage” didn’t see it coming,
“No one saw it coming.”
Stricken by Economic Alzheimers, all the media and
political “recovery” boosters would forget what they had
forecast, insisting they had predicted a crash all along.
Many who had obediently gone along with the experts,
now, jobless and desperate, tried to console themselves
with the thought that everyone had done their best, and
if only there had been more stimulus money pumped into
the system, the bad times might have been averted.
Then there were the others — the 20 percent who could
think for themselves. Unlike the vast majority, they were
unafraid to face the inevitable consequences of the undeniable
socioeconomic and geopolitical facts.
When the future came, the prepared and empowered
were ready for it.
Civil War to “Great War” In the summer
of 2012, as the world moves ever closer to the “Great War,”
the immediate threat to America looks more like civil war.
The two political parties, themselves fractured, are more
polarized then ever. The schisms that began with Tea Parties
and Tax Protests in 2009 would culminate in disuniting
the United States into multiple irreconcilable factions.
With most revolutions, civil wars and world wars, there
is no single defining cause. Politics always plays a role, but
not necessarily the defining role. The 2nd American Revolution
contains elements of both the War for Independence
and the War Between the States. As with both, there
was more than one issue behind the chaos and discontent.
With civil war brewing and politicians playing one faction
against the other, the media will oversimplify the discontent
to paint it as a clearly defined “North vs. South”
ideological battle. It is not. Yes, the Union itself is in jeopardy,
but on a grander scale. The too-small-to-saves are
rising to confront the too-big-to-fails. Champions of State
Sovereignty are challenging Federal Rule. It’s the police
state vs. mass civil disobedience; martial law vs. Constitutional
Law.
Trend Forecast: Just as many nations were defaulting on
sovereign debt, so too, would many states. With taxes already
raised to incendiary levels, states were refusing to
finance federal programs which returned little or nothing
to them (e.g., education) and/or ran against the wishes
of their constituencies … wars, foreign aid, subsidies, the
huge, ever-increasing defense budget, etc.
The Second Vermont Republic, virtually unknown in
2009, was no longer a long-shot nor a joke. Their manifesto
made sense to many.
And they weren’t alone. Calls for secession and regionalization
would reach ballot boxes by 2012. Rebelling against
dictates that had been imposed by the Federal government
but opposed by the people, single states and regional movements
were fomenting secession.
Empire America was under siege. That was the real news.
But with a black man running for reelection and immigration
a complementary front-burner issue, swarms of “useful
idiots” would be suckered into a politically engineered
and media promoted racial propaganda trap — making it
appear a “black and white” issue.
Back In The USSR The world was coming apart
at the seams, but to the US, still living in its “We’re #1”
illusion, “over there” was a world away. America’s leaders
and media, with their ingrained sense of moral superiority,
were incapable of contemplating even the possibility
that the great Union could suffer the same fate as the
Soviet Union.
While the many glaring differences between the two
political systems had been exhaustively publicized — especially
in the United States — the glaring similarities went
unnoticed.
As in the disintegrating USSR, the USA infrastructure
was as rotten as its political system. Having forced through
globalizing legislation that turned a once vibrant nation of
tradesmen, craftsmen, farmers, shop keepers, blue-collar
workers and manufacturers into a low-wage service society
of health care aides, shelf-stockers, cashiers, office serfs
and clerks. Even America’s work ethic was beginning to
turn Soviet: “We pretend to work. They pretend to pay us.”
Similarities did not stop there. Corporate executive or
Communist commissar — the names, faces and uniforms
were different, but they were economically and politically
much the same. Pay, perks and power were increasingly
concentrated at the top, while below, resentment seethed
and mounted.
The USSR, in its waning days of Empire, squandered
its finite resources fighting and losing a Cold War while
running a losing arms race.
The USA, in its waning days of Empire, squandered its
greater but still finite resources on a gargantuan defense
budget, fighting unwinnable hot wars and feeding an insatiable
military stationed on hundreds of bases worldwide.
In an ironic twist of history, both Empires would be
brought down by sipping from the same Afghan final straw.
(See “Losers, Liars, Lost Causes,” page 18)
UNCLE SAM, UNCLE JOE
Of course, outwardly, 20th century Soviet Russia and early
21st century USA appeared centuries and worlds apart.
Under Stalinist communism there was no pretense to
freedom of speech or movement, while in the US democracy,
the First Amendment was a cherished tradition and
people have always been more or less free to criticize at will.
In Russia 2010, investigative journalists digging too
deeply might have been digging their own graves. Dissenters,
whistle blowers and opposing interests, as in the old
days, did so at their own peril.
In the US, although freedom of speech and dissent may
have been tolerated, in practice the end result was no different.
Regardless of who was in power — Republicans or
Democrats — the people had little say in any matter of consequence.
The government did as it pleased.
The President’s harshest Republican/Conservative
political and media critics were labeling
Obamarule as Marxism/Communism/
Socialism. But Uncle Sam did not look at
all like Uncle Joe. His descent into totalitarianism
wore the face of Fascism. “Fascism
should more appropriately be called
Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate
power,” opined Benito Mussolini, generally regarded as an
authority on the subject.
Americans were spoon-fed since infancy the Gospel of
Capitalism: “An economic system characterized by private
or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments
that are determined by private decision, and by prices,
production, and the distribution of goods that are determined
mainly by competition in a free market.”
While the capitalistic reality never quite lived up to its
definition, America had been, more so than any other nation
on earth, the land of opportunity. While there were
always race, gender and religious barriers, realizing the
American Dream was a possibility open to all willing to
work for it.
However, long before 2012, though still packaged with
its same Red, White & Blue label, the ingredients bore no
resemblance to the original recipe.
While the principles of equality may have prevailed
in many sociopolitical fields, in the US, all men were not
created equal. The economic formula had changed even
though the words had not. It was now, “The bigger you are,
the bigger the breaks.”
Too-big-to-fail? What fascist made that up? Tax breaks
for the richest. Loan guarantees and grants only for the
connected. Sweetheart deals and subsides only for the biggest
players in the richest industries — Big Oil, Big Pharma,
Agribusiness, Big Airlines, Defense Contractors, Big
Banks and Brokerages and Big Insurance — not only was
everyone else on their own, Big Brother took their taxes to
enrich Big Friends.
After the rounds of bailouts, rescues and stimulus plans
that bailed out, rescued and stimulated only the Bigs, public
anger was rising. Determined to keep playing the game,
cover their losses and retain Big Bonuses, Congress again
came to the rescue, but with a deft Orwellian sleight of
nomenclature, concealed its true identity from the public.
It was called the “Restoring American Financial Stability
Act of 2010” and was peddled to the public as a bill
that would improve accountability and transparency in
the financial system, protect taxpayers by putting an end
to bailouts, and protect consumers from abusive financial
services practices.
Absent from the “peddle” (in the Congressional synopsis)
was the itsy-bitsy, minor little detail of the $4 trillion
earmarked as a guarantee to bail out troubled institutions
should the need arise. Despite the Act’s name, it was no
more than another pledge to soak the people
and bail out the Bigs.
Every government measure taken benefited
only the Biggest, consolidating business
and industry at the top. Through a
combination of deregulation and political
favoritism, freedom was taken out of the free market, making
it next to impossible for the entrepreneur to compete.
At every level, the Bigs kept getting bigger.
For example: in 1994, the six biggest financial institutions
held assets equivalent to 20 percent of the US economy.
When the “Panic of ’08” hit, they held 58 percent. By
2010, they held 62 percent. Three Big Banks controlled
two-thirds of the legal extortion racket otherwise known as
the credit card business. The same drive to consolidation
at the top applied to every major aspect of the American
economy.
These were not academic percentages divorced from
daily life. When the richest 10 percent of the country have
or control 93 percent of all financial wealth, there is only 7
percent left to divvy up between the remaining 90 percent
of the populace.
By 2012, the garish imbalance was no longer a soulless
statistic or a thin slice on a pie chart. Heavily taxed, foreclosed,
harassed, working for little or unemployed … that
beleaguered and increasingly resentful 90 percent wanted
a bigger piece of the pie.
SQUEEZE THE LITTLE PEOPLE
Variations of the same story were playing out around the
world. Turmoil in Thailand. Worker strikes in China. General
strikes in India. From the streets of Greece, Hungary,
Romania … to plantations in Panama, across the globe the
people were protesting. While the motivations appeared
different, at the core, a common thread linked them:
the rich were getting richer, and everyone else was being
squeezed or starved.
But in the summer of 2010, the universal rumblings
were either not being heard, were misinterpreted as isolat-
ed and unrelated incidents — or dismissed by purveyors of
optimism opium as fleeting phenomena that would cease
as the economy recovered:
Jobs Will Give Boost as Stimulus
Ends, Greenlaw Says
July 6 (Bloomberg) — Job growth will sustain
the U.S. economic recovery even as government
fiscal stimulus ends, according to David Greenlaw,
Morgan Stanley’s chief fixed-income economist in
New York.
Morgan Stanley expects “moderate, sustainable
growth, a rebound in private credit demands,
a bottoming in inflation and a Fed that begins to
implement its exit strategy.”
By any recognized measure, the data would not justify such
optimism — or any optimism.
Of all of the indicators, the most prominent from Wall
Street’s perspective is the stock market, which in 2010 began
on a modest down note and remained essentially flat.
The old adage, “As goes January, so goes the year” was
living up to its reputation. Historically, it is one of the year’s
strongest months. Nearly 80 percent of the time, if January
is positive the markets will rise over the course of the year.
By putting the most positive possible spin on the data,
the brokers and touts were promoting the stagnant stock
market as a “buying opportunity.” Their own livelihoods
depended on keeping the gamblers inside the casino. After
plummeting from its 14,000 high in 2007, the Dow had
recovered to its 1999 trading range of 10,000.
But 10,000 in 2010 was not the same as 10,000 in 1999.
In the intervening decade, the Consumer Price Index had
risen by some 60 points. For the market to be worth in
buying power what it had been worth a decade earlier, the
Dow would have been trading above 14,000.
It wasn’t as though this was some actuarial secret, but
if you were following the financial news you would have
been hard put to find an expert talking about the Dow
indexed for inflation.
“The market is very oversold,” said Paul Zemsky of
ING Investment Management, which oversaw $550 billion
when the market tipped past 10,000 in early July.
“The improvement in retail sales numbers was enough to
get some people back in. Over the next few weeks, we’ll
probably get both economic and earnings data that will
show that we’re not going to go back into recession.”
ECONOMIC ALZHEIMERS
Multi-billionaire Warren Buffett, regaled as the “Oracle
of Omaha” and revered by the business media for his insatiable
lust for ever more money, in early summer made
the recovery official. “The economy is coming back, no
question in my mind,” he said.
Yet, with all the stimulus, with all the trillions in bailouts,
tax incentives, “cash for clunkers” … the best that
could be said for the market in mid-2010 was at least the
worst hadn’t happened.
But the worst would happen by 2011. And as always,
those that didn’t see the crash coming would claim that
since such people as Buffett the “Sage” didn’t see it coming,
“No one saw it coming.”
Stricken by Economic Alzheimers, all the media and
political “recovery” boosters would forget what they had
forecast, insisting they had predicted a crash all along.
Many who had obediently gone along with the experts,
now, jobless and desperate, tried to console themselves
with the thought that everyone had done their best, and
if only there had been more stimulus money pumped into
the system, the bad times might have been averted.
Then there were the others — the 20 percent who could
think for themselves. Unlike the vast majority, they were
unafraid to face the inevitable consequences of the undeniable
socioeconomic and geopolitical facts.
When the future came, the prepared and empowered
were ready for it.