Trendcaster Gerald Celente November 19, 2008

I had the good fortune to hear a radio interview on Novermber 19, 2008, with Gerald Celente one of the leading "Futurists" of our time. Here are some of the highlights of his predictions.

• Commercial real estate is collapsing. Its collapse will equal if not surpass the devastation of the housing real estate collapse. Commercial vacancy rates are going up; as a result, commercial real estate is losing its value.
• We are heading not for a Great Depression. We are heading for the Greatest Depression! There is no way out. Not even the election of Barack Obama can stop it.
• Nobody is buying. Look for store closings on a large scale in February of 2009 as a result of the worst Christmas retail sales season since World War II. Huge layoffs are coming.
• Wall Street's model of business success was chain stores, franchises. This model of constantly getting bigger is now broken. Look for the collapse of chain stores and their related shopping malls. Into this vacuum will step new local small businesses! This is the opportunity in the coming chaos.
• Agri-business is going to go bust and belly up too. The reason is the cost of transporting food over long distances is no longer cost-effective. Look for the rise of local food production! This is another opportunity in the coming chaos. The collapse of agri-business parallels the bigger-is-better collapse of chains and their related shopping malls.
• Look for the triumph of Main Street over Wall Street, which has hijacked Washington.
• We are watching the end of American Empire. The coming overall economic collapse it home will make it impossible to continue to wage overseas wars for corporate oil profits.
• Bailouts only prolong the pain of the current bursting financial and economic bubbles.
• This reminds me of an old American folk song. Its refrain goes like this: "It's a gift to be simple. It's is a gift to be free. It is a gift to come down to where we ought to be!"
• So it was. So it is! Thanks, Gerald Celente!