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Celente Predicted Pakistani Terror as a Top Trend for 2010: More Terror to Come

KINGSTON, NY, 4 May 2010 - Months prior to the release of the Trends Journal's "Top Trends for 2010" - on radio, TV, in Trend Alerts^� and press releases - Gerald Celente forecast a new wave terror strikes against the United States. He predicted the time, the place, the who and the how.

The "time" would be 2010. The "place" would be public and symbolic. The "who" would, in all probability, be a lone wolf of Pakistani origin or heritage. The "how" would be low-tech or high - whatever the method or means, the rationale would be would be the same: revenge.

Celente asked, "Who among the 200,000 Pakistanis living in America will decide to exact revenge for murdered relatives or drone-bombed villages back home?" (See "Terror 2010," Trends Journal^�, Winter 2010)

And the connections Celente spelled out long ago between the Obama administration's $7.5 billion "Af-Pak Strategy" and its terror consequences, have not yet been made or acknowledged by Washington or by the American media.

In the Summer 2009 Trends Journal^� he wrote that the military policy resulting in thousands of Pakistani deaths and three million civilians forced to flee their homes could only intensify anti-American hatred. "Suffering Pakistanis now added to the already swelled ranks of Muslims seeking to avenge the tens of thousands dead and hundreds of thousands mutilated by America in the ongoing Afghan and Iraq Wars."

In the Winter 2010 Trends Journal^�, Celente also predicted that any terror attempt, whether it succeeded or failed, would be instantly turned into "terrortainment," and the predictable cast of pundits, politicians, experts and commentators would issue their predictable pronouncements: The evil-doers are evil. The barbarians are barbarous and they hate us for our freedoms; there is nothing we can do about it except to further heighten "security".

Sure enough, among the gaggle of reactions to this newest event was the all-time favorite hollow promise trotted out whenever terror strikes: "We will not rest until we have brought everyone responsible to justice," intoned US Attorney General, Eric Holder.

And sure enough, as predicted, the motivation behind this (and every other) terror attack would be misrepresented in the three-ring political, pundit and media circus. There was little introspective attention paid to the connection between America's military role in Pakistan and the explosive-laden SUV in Times Square.

True to form, as with terror incidents past, the authorities counseled citizens to "remain vigilant". Citing the constant threat of terror, they demanded increased funding for tighter security measures - which will doubtless include further abrogation of Constitutional rights, all under the guise of assuring anti-terror "protection".

Trendpost: While the need for vigilance should not be dismissed, the greater vigilance should be directed toward recognizing what is behind the terror, coping with the implications, and avoiding being caught up in a national climate of exaggerated fear. While the likelihood that your life will be in danger is statistically negligible, it is prudent to take proactive measures in anticipation of further terror strikes.

As Gerald Celente has forecast, should a major terror strike hit, gold prices will soar, the world equity markets will plummet, and the economy will spiral downward. The Trends Research Institute urges subscribers to closely re-read the Trends Journals cited above as well as "Neo-Survivalism" in the Winter 2010 issue.

Is our Government Continuing to Practice Financial Fascism?

The "Dodd Financial Reform" bill being considered by the Senate will make it illegal for 99.6% percent of the population to invest in needed new and promising start-up companies.

At the same time, the bill ensures that the 33 largest banks, which control 92 percent of all bank assets will be required to purchase more federal government debt before giving loans to businesses and individuals.

Quite simply, the government is continuing to practice financial fascism.

Obama The new "ObamaCare" bill will require us to buy specified health insurance, whether it is appropriate for us or not. Government-run ads encourage people to buy tickets in government-run lotteries, where the expected value can be less than one-sixth of the ticket price.

Yet the new financial reform bill will make it illegal to invest in a new venture or start-up company for anyone who does not have a liquid net worth of $2.2 million or an annual income of roughly $450,000 if single or $675,000 if married - which rules out all but fewer than 1 percent of the population.

If this passes and is signed into law, Congress and the president will be saying to the American people, "Ninety-nine-plus percent of you are too stupid to know how to invest your own money." They think the rest of us are as irresponsible as they are.

A major reason the American economy has prospered is that traditionally it has been easy to start a new business, and new businesses account for much of the innovation and job growth in the American economy.

Inventors, from Thomas Edison (who started GE, among other companies) to the modern-day whizzes behind Apple, Google and all the rest, have relied on their ability to get "angel" investors to begin their companies. An angel investor is one who is willing to invest in a new and untried business with the hope of a very large return.

It is well known that there is a very high rate of failure among new businesses. For instance, more than 90 percent of all new restaurants fail within three years - but many of the ones that don't fail become very profitable. For every new Apple, there are hundreds of failures.

In the name of "investor protection," the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) makes it almost mandatory that entrepreneurs approach only "accredited investors" when seeking investment capital. Currently, an accredited investor is a person who has a net worth of $1 million or an income of $200,000 per year.

The SEC will argue that such a rule protects "widows and orphans" from unscrupulous promoters. This is the same SEC that failed to see the Madoff Ponzi scheme when it was dumped in its lap.

In fact, the rule makes little sense and strongly discriminates against knowledgeable people who are not yet wealthy but are quite capable of making good investment decisions while doing nothing to protect the medical doctor or professional basketball player who easily might meet the definition of an accredited investor but knows little about the risks of new ventures.

Under the current rule, a young finance professor at a good university business school who makes $120,000 a year and has a net worth of just $500,000 would not be considered competent to invest in a promising new high-tech start-up, while a successful country-and-Western singer with an eighth-grade education and no experience in or knowledge of business or finance would be considered competent.

The proposed rule in the Dodd Financial Reform Bill will make this absurdity and loss of financial freedom far worse.

What right do the financial fascists in Washington, who created the world's biggest financial Ponzi schemes (i.e., Social Security and Medicare) and the largest unsustainable debt in history, have to tell more than 99% percent of the rest of us what we can and cannot invest in?

Those in the same political class are ardent proponents of state lotteries, which typically give a ticket buyer one chance in 15 million of winning, with a payout of less than 50 percent of the ticket price. If one does win and decides to take a lump sum rather than a 30-year payout, the normal payment is one-third of the face amount, upon which the recipient will have to pay full federal and state income tax.

Given President Obama's new tax-increase proposals, a lottery winner in a high-tax state such as California would be paying about 50 percent of the winnings in tax. Thus, a person who buys a $1 ticket can expect to receive only about 7.5 cents in return. If this is not financial fraud, there is no such thing as financial fraud, but because it is practiced by government, it is deemed OK even though any private party doing the same thing would go jail.

At the same time the government class is doing its best to fleece the poor and math-challenged by promoting state lotteries, it is doing its best to prevent middle-class Americans from investing in new businesses that might become productive.

Could this possibly have anything to do with who were the big financial givers to the Obama campaign and to the campaigns of the Democrat congressional committee chairmen?

The 1,300-page financial reform bill going through the Senate will, in essence, make the biggest banks (those considered too big to fail) wards of the state - which is classic financial fascism. The Obama Treasury, not the semi-independent Federal Reserve, will decide what these banks are allowed to invest in, in exchange for an unlimited U.S. government guarantee.

Since September 2009, banks have been lending more to the government than to private industry. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to see where all this is headed.

Richard W. Rahn is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth.