Celente 2010 Trend is Terrorism

[runningman]

Top trends forecaster says that terrorist attacks in the UK and USA are probable in 2010. He also believes terroist attacks will happen in Saudi Arabia blowing up the pipelines because of a border dispute with Yemen. Again Al Qaeda will be blamed. If the bombs go off in Saudi Arabia Gerald fears there will be a collapse of the world economy with a bank holiday. The reason for this trend is because anti American setiment in Pakistan and around the world is at an all time high like when he predicted 9/11 in Dec. 2000.

What I find interesting about this prediction from Gerald is that the US gov't has just given millions of dollars to the ISI to supposedly fight the Taliban. Reminds me of when they sent $100,000 to the ISI who gave it to Muhammed Atta.

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mu2Dlzaz00&feature=related[/YOUTUBE]

[Miroslav]

Re: Celente 2010 Trend is Terrorism

*yawn*

[runningman]

Re: Celente 2010 Trend is Terrorism



"Everybody Loves Us.. we voted for Obama"

[floridaorange]

Re: Celente 2010 Trend is Terrorism

^something tells me this thread was started primarily about ^that photo and caption...

[runningman]

Re: Celente 2010 Trend is Terrorism

no I'm just witty.

[Miroslav]

Re: Celente 2010 Trend is Terrorism

I'm just bored with the end of the world and all that stuff. So what else is new?

[runningman]

Re: Celente 2010 Trend is Terrorism

well you were the one that wanted to "Parachute" down, if free market capitalism would have been allowed to work by Bush and Obama we would already be talking about green shoots. But instead we are still sinking slowly.

[Miroslav]

Re: Celente 2010 Trend is Terrorism

^^highly debatable.

[runningman]

Re: Celente 2010 Trend is Terrorism

not really..

The too big to fails are even bigger now then they were before.
We are still in a downward trend.
There are no big new emerging economies in action.
Gold prices are shooting up to hedge against the US dollar (shows lack of confidence)
The average American family is to small to save (Moral Hazard)
Government Debt is exploding and is unsustainable
Unemployment is hovering around 18% (near depression levels)
The US dollar is on a downward trend

I don't really see the bright spots in what is going on here. I have said I would cheer up the second I see a sign (Jobs, New Economies, anything..)

[chunky]

Re: Celente 2010 Trend is Terrorism

I think Al Qaeda sleeper cells seem to have a severe case narcolepsy.

[Miroslav]

Re: Celente 2010 Trend is Terrorism

not really..

The too big to fails are even bigger now then they were before.
We are still in a downward trend.
There are no big new emerging economies in action.
Gold prices are shooting up to hedge against the US dollar (shows lack of confidence)
The average American family is to small to save (Moral Hazard)
Government Debt is exploding and is unsustainable
Unemployment is hovering around 18% (near depression levels)
The US dollar is on a downward trend

I don't really see the bright spots in what is going on here. I have said I would cheer up the second I see a sign (Jobs, New Economies, anything..)

I never claimed that things were good or that government policies were optimal.

And simply pointing out that things are bad today does not prove that things would have been good or better under the alternative scenario where government did nothing during the crisis period.

In fact, one could make the argument that different policies years ago could have made a much bigger difference to our current state of affairs and that once we were in full-blown crisis mode, it was far too late. At that point, the options to pick from ranged from "bad" or "worse".

So your original assertion is still highly debatable.

[runningman]

Re: Celente 2010 Trend is Terrorism

What the bailouts taught us is that "trickle down" economics doesn't work. You can't give huge amounts of money (Stimulus as the MSM likes to call it) to banks and hope they decide to give it out to trickle down to the average person and small business.

I mean could you imagine if they used some bailout money to really spur innovation and small business instead of just throwing it away to banks? Say they took $100 Billion of the trillions gone and invested in new ideas, new products??? It would create JOBS! The banks are hoarding the money to lick their wounds while giving huge bonuses to people that don't deserve it.. No jobs get created that way.

[Miroslav]

Re: Celente 2010 Trend is Terrorism

What the bailouts taught us is that "trickle down" economics doesn't work. You can't give huge amounts of money (Stimulus as the MSM likes to call it) to banks and hope they decide to give it out to trickle down to the average person and small business.

I mean could you imagine if they used some bailout money to really spur innovation and small business instead of just throwing it away to banks? Say they took $100 Billion of the trillions gone and invested in new ideas, new products??? It would create JOBS! The banks are hoarding the money to lick their wounds while giving huge bonuses to people that don't deserve it.. No jobs get created that way.

We've had this talk before. It is extremely undesireable and suboptimal to have the government intervene and bail out anybody, and the consequences of doing so are ugly. But once you reach the point of crisis, there may be no better choice. The sins that got us to the point of crisis in the first place have already been committed in the past and it is too late to correct them now; the only choice is to intervene immediately and prop the sytem up or else to simply watch it collapse. If you went for the second option, the highly interdependent nature of these institutions would have led to a progressive collapse of basically the entire system. The negative consequences of this would have been so severe that jobs programs and other forms of aid would be a completely moot point. Whether you believe it or not, banks are actually critically necessary for the economy to work. If you allowed the major financial institutions to all progressively collapse like dominos, then I guarantee you that 100% of the potential workforce will be unemployed shortly thereafter and there will be no "green shoots" in the economy.

The bailout does not teach you anything about "trickle down" economics because it was not intended to produce jobs or bring back economic prosperity. It was intended to keep the system from collapsing and avert the economic collapse that would have followed it. Other policy actions are needed to address job creation and put us back on the path to economic growth. When the entire house you live in is on fire and about to come down, you have to address the immediate danger before you can figure out how to rebuild it.

[runningman]

Re: Celente 2010 Trend is Terrorism

you are the type that always scares everyone into believing "the end of the world would have come".."we had too" attitude. Healthy banks would have come in and swooped up the good assets like fertilizer to soil to allow for more growth. The world wouldn't have stopped. Banks woud have realigned while giving out emergency loans to keep things gowing, you know essentials - Food, electricity, water, police. Once they realigned (probably in a few weeks if not days) after a sharp decline- growth would have began sharply and the economies would have corrected themselves. But what we have here is a complete mess. It is like they always make the wrong decision. But afraid of the dark type people have scared everyone else that "It would have been much worse." Mush worse than what?? We are still spiraling down. Our worst days are still ahead of us..

I think you need to read more on the depression of 1920-21

[Miroslav]

Re: Celente 2010 Trend is Terrorism

you are the type that always scares everyone into believing "the end of the world would have come".."we had too" attitude.

Funny you say that, because you are the type that is always scaring everyone into believing "the end of the world is coming."

Healthy banks would have come in and swooped up the good assets like fertilizer to soil to allow for more growth. The world wouldn't have stopped. Banks woud have realigned while giving out emergency loans to keep things gowing, you know essentials - Food, electricity, water, police. Once they realigned (probably in a few weeks if not days) after a sharp decline- growth would have began sharply and the economies would have corrected themselves.

No they wouldn't have. If you think I need to read about the Great Depression, then I can tell you that you really need to take a university-level financial institutions course. Your comments suggest that you are missing some important contextual pieces of the fundamental picture.

Modern banks are interdependent by necessity and definition. They basically exist to manage the risk of holding a portfolio of largely short-term liabilities (primarily bank customer deposits) with largely longer-term assets (loans, other investments, etc.). Banks do not keep the full stock of cash necessary to meet their liabilities on hand at all times because typically not everyone is going to withdraw their money at once. They basically keep a legally required fraction of them around and loan out the rest to earn a greater return. Thus, a complex system of interbank loans and near-term cash inflows from investments is necessary to keep banks solvent. That means they rely directly on each other, and one bank's asset can be another's liability. Furthermore, banks invest in financial assets that can be extremely financially interdependent. Securitizated mortgages are a classic case of this, where banks hold traunches of assets that are made up of pools of individual mortgages from all over the place that have been sold and resold from one financial institution to another. Also, banks also serve as "market makers" in many key securities markets; they are actually the ones that match the buyer and the seller, both of which may be other banks. When that market maker is not there, that market may freeze up in the near term. And then, throw in the scenario where people panick and start running on banks to pull out all of their money at once, which is basically for a bank like having all of its debts come due in one day. That's the kiss of death to the whole system. And then guess what happens: real businesses and people can't pay their employees or their bills. It's a real mess.

What all this means is that when a major sector of the banking system gets "sick", it spreads to other healthy players by definition. When a few big players go down, it gets ugly really fast. And when other players get sick, then the problems spread even faster to others. The problem doesn't just stop with the "sick" ones, because these banks are highly interdependent on each other for cash flow - moreso today than ever before in the history of the world. It provides them with great opportunities, but it's also a real problem; it's why the system is so fragile. You've heard of the term "too big to fail", right? Well, this is exactly what "too big to fail" means: a player that has such an interdependent reach that its collapse would trigger the subsequent collapse of other players. And remember why Warren Buffett called derivatives "weapons of mass financial destruction"? This is exactly why.

And by the way, banks don't often give out "emergency loans"; they only give out loans in cases where they think they will make a return on investment. Why do you think that in your scenario banks would have been so generous with "emergency loans"? Let me ask you a question: do you see banks making "emergency loans" today? When crisis hits, banks clamp down on lending and try to preserve as much cash flow as possible.

Finally, growth would not have returned "in a matter of days", because the root of the economic problems was not the banks; their collapse was only the symptom. As in all long-term economic downturns, the root of this one comes down to real-world production and consumption, not just the short-term manipulation of bank balance sheets. The long-term housing bubble causes such a loss in consumer wealth that banks have lost a lot of their cash inflow and can't loan out as much money to businesses; businesses can't produce as much output because consumers can't consume as much; consumers can't consume as before because they are lost a lot of their wealth in the housing bubble and are now overextended in debt. It's a vicious cycle. This is the real root of the crisis and it is going to take a long time to climb out of. This is why there can be no quick recovery whether banks made "emergency loans" or not. The consumer cannot continue to consume at past levels.

But what we have here is a complete mess. It is like they always make the wrong decision. But afraid of the dark type people have scared everyone else that "It would have been much worse." Mush worse than what?? We are still spiraling down. Our worst days are still ahead of us..

I think you need to read more on the depression of 1920-21

It is a mess. And it's going to take a long time to get out of it. But letting the banks fail as you suggest would have produced a far greater mess that would have taken even longer to get out of. And if you want to know what "much worse" means, try to imagine how well our present way of life would work if no money could pass between the hands of various parties that engage in the markets because that's what the result of a complete shutdown of the financial system would produce. And guess what would necessarily follow after that? The government would end up stepping in and taking everything over anyways.