No Way Out: The Greatest Depression, & Becoming The USSR

(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Daniel Tencer writing at RawStory Friday reported that “The US economic recovery in recent quarters is little more than a “cover-up” and the world is headed for a “Greatest Depression,” complete with social unrest and class warfare, says a renowned economic forecaster. Gerald Celente, head of the Trends Research Institute, told Yahoo! News’ Tech Ticker that there’s no risk of a “double-dip recession” because the first “dip” never ended.”

“We’re saying there’s no double dip, it never ended,” Celente said. “We’re looking at the Greatest Depression. There’s no way out of this without [rebuilding] productive capacity. You can’t print [money to get] out of it.”

“Celente said the current unemployment rate, if it were measured as it was measured during the Great Depression, would be around 17.5 percent. And he expects that number to rise to around 22 percent in the coming years.”

“One of the good businesses to get in to may be guillotines,” Celente quipped. “Because there’s a real off-with-their-heads fever going on. People are really fed up.”

…

“We went from a country that used to be merchants, craftspeople, manufacturers, to clerks and cashiers,” Celente said. “We have to bring manufacturing back to America.”

Celente also talked with Tech Tickers interviewers Friday about his view of the direction of the US ’empire’, saying that what he and Trends Research Institute sees is effectively America ‘becoming’ the USSR: “In a lot of ways, it’s empire decline. They ran the cold war race and they lost. We’re still in the race”, “We’re also seeing similarities, of the United States breaking up like the USSR did”. “The country is too big to be run by a bunch of people in tight suits, white shirts and red ties. They’re not pulling it off. They’re empty suits.”, he opines.

Celente describes some of the similarities, including:

A rotten political system: He compares politicians (Democrats and Republicans alike) to “Mafioso” and says campaign contributions are really thinly disguised “bribes and payoffs.”

Crony capitalism: Like in the USSR of old, Celente laments that so much of America’s wealth (93%) is controlled by such a small group small portion of its population (10%). Owing to that concentration of wealth, the government makes policies designed to reward “the bigs” at the expense of average citizens (see: Bailouts, banks).

Military-industrial complex: The USSR went bankrupt fighting the cold war and Celente fears the U.S. is “squandering 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.”

Crossposted now at DailyKos, fwiw…