The middle classes could become a revolutionary class.

For three years I have said it is time for revolution.

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Gerald Celente, the CEO of Trends Research Institute, predicted the 1987 stock market crash and the fall of the Soviet Union is now forecasting revolution in America, food riots and tax rebellions - all within four years - putting food on the table will be a more pressing concern than buying Christmas gifts by 2012.

He is renowned for his accuracy in predicting future world and economic events.

By 2012 America will become an undeveloped nation. There will be a revolution marked by food riots, squatter rebellions, tax revolts and job marches. Holidays will be more about obtaining food, not gifts.

"We're going to see the end of the retail Christmas ....we're going to see a fundamental shift take place ....putting food on the table is going to be more important that putting gifts under the Christmas tree ...worse than the great depression".

"America's going to go through a transition the likes of which no one is prepared for," said Celente, noting that people's refusal to acknowledge that America was even in a recession highlights how big a problem denial is in being ready for the true scale of the crisis.

Celente, who successfully predicted the 1997 Asian Currency Crisis, the subprime mortgage collapse and the massive devaluation of the U.S. dollar, told UPI in November last year that the following year would be known as "The Panic of 2008," adding that "giants (would) tumble to their deaths," which is exactly what we have witnessed with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and others. He also said that the dollar would eventually be devalued by as much as 90 percent.

The prospect of revolution was a concept echoed by a British Ministry of Defence report last year, which predicted that within 30 years, the growing gap between the super rich and the middle class, along with an urban underclass threatening social order would mean, "The world's middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest," and that, "The middle classes could become a revolutionary class."

In a separate recent interview, Celente went further on the subject of revolution in America."There will be a revolution in this country," he said. "It's not going to come yet, but it's going to come down the line and we're going to see a third party and this was the catalyst for it: the takeover of Washington, D. C., in broad daylight by Wall Street in this bloodless coup. And it will happen as conditions continue to worsen."

"The first thing to do is organize with tax revolts. That's going to be the big one because people can't afford to pay more school tax, property tax, any kind of tax. You're going to start seeing those kinds of protests start to develop."

"It's going to be very bleak. Very sad. And there is going to be a lot of homeless, the likes of which we have never seen before. Tent cities are already sprouting up around the country and we're going to see many more."

"We're going to start seeing huge areas of vacant real estate and squatters living in them as well. It's going to be a picture the likes of which Americans are not going to be used to. It's going to come as a shock and with it, there's going to be a lot of crime. And the crime is going to be a lot worse than it was before because in the last 1929 Depression, people's minds weren't wrecked on all these modern drugs - over-the-counter drugs, or crystal meth or whatever it might be. So, you have a huge underclass of very desperate people with their minds chemically blown beyond anybody's comprehension."

So there you have it - hardly a nutjob conspiracy theorist blowhard now is he? The price of not heeding his warnings will be far greater than the cost of preparing for the future now. The measure of your preparation is the ability to define and achieve independent sustenance in what are very very basic necessities. That won't include McDonald's burgers, your cell phone, your big car or readily available gasoline (regardless of price). Better get ready. If even a fourth of what is predicted comes true...

Nearest waiting disaster is a money maker

Economic forecast - the end of Capitalism?

The budget deficit of Japan's economy was more than twice the country's GDP (as of June 2010) before the current tsunami/nuclear crisis.

Most of the major European economies are struggling with massive debt.

The United States, UK, Europe, Japan...and so it goes...announcing that things can only get worse if austerity measures aren't introduced right away.

What conclusions can be drawn from what has been widespread and collective economic mismanagement? Could this be the end of Capitalism or is that Doomsday talk?

Economics experts predict conflicting views, but then most 'experts' disagree with each other anyway. However, austerity measures being pursued throughout the world will surely have a recessionary effect.

Less spending power in people's pockets = less to spend on goods and services = businesses and business turnover will suffer = tax revenues will fall and unemployment payments rise.

Japanese governments have been borrowing heavily since their economic bubble burst 20 years ago. Ongoing deficits have been shored up by issuing long-term government bonds which are now unsustainable. It is the same for the United States, UK, Europe etc.

So many countries in financial turmoil...why?
The problem seems to be not a failure of Capitalism as a philosophy, but more a failure of the reporting mechanisms that support governments with their collection and interpretation of economic data. That and poor decisions...buy now, pay later.

The impact of the economic news coming out of Japan, the UK and EU are a threat to economic and political stability. So far, we've seen very few civil protests by disaffected workers forced to accept cuts in their incomes. So far that is.

It may be that the airplane called Capitalism has been flying off course for so long that the collision no-one thought possible...running out of fuel and ditching in failure.

US Civil War and Moammar Gadhafi's Libyan military forces vs rebels in the east. The principle of free choice?

On one hand

On the other hand

Moammar Gadhafi's military forces pushed into the rebel stronghold of Benghazi on Saturday. Artillery rounds landed inside the city, and pro-Gadhafi tanks rolled into the town firing rounds, witnesses said. U.S., European and Arab leaders met Saturday at a last-minute Paris meeting on Libya. "There is minute-by-minute consultation between the United States and the militaries of other countries that are considering their support of action" under a U.N. resolution authorizing the use of force, a senior State Department official told reporters.

In the United States of America in 1860, a war of northern aggression was caused by the north deciding that it wanted to impose their laws and morals on the southern states instead of allowing the southern states to chart their own course. This war was transformed, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, into a war for a "new birth of freedom." The 60,000 death casualties of a Civil War was the worst in American history. Rebels from the south fought against government forces of the north.

Suppose in 1860 USA, after observing the Confederate rebels being attacked by federal government forces, foreign nations decided to intervene?

On 21 February 2011, the state television HQ in the Libyan capital Tripoli was breached by anti-government demonstrators and a government building was set ablaze as protests continued.

On October 16, 1859, John Brown, [a northerner who hated slavery and had previously raided pro-slavery strongholds in New York, Kansas and here in Virginia] and twenty-one men attacked the armory at Harpers Ferry and rounded up sixty men from the area as hostages. Brown and his compatriots planned to take the federal arsenal and armory there and use the weapons to arm slaves in a rebellion they hoped would spread throughout the South. Government forces, headed by Colonel Robert E. Lee, attacked the armory, killing ten men--two of whom were Browns sons. Brown survived the attack but was wounded. He was charged with murder and treason and was hanged on December 2, 1859. Following Brown's hanging, the southern militia was formed into a viable fighting force. This was the beginning of the Confederate Army.

How do illegal immigrants actually harm?

Our society maintains an infrastructure of support to its citizens, paid by its citizens, earned by its citizens and defined by them. Whenever a non-citizen makes use of the infrastructure resources, it reduces the availability to those who rightfully deserve it.
Roads, water supply, sewers, power grids, telecommunications, social services, markets etc. are examples.
Your family is limited in its resources...how would an uninvited stranger living in your home, eating your food, using your electricity etc. affect your life? There is some degree of degradation to you in every aspect of your family's life by the presence of that stranger.
The degree of degradation of infrastructure resources, and the increased cost of the infrastructure, is significant in direct proportion to the number of illegal immigrants. 11-12 million illegals living within the 300 million persons in the United States may only be 3-4 percent nationally, but in some border areas that percentage is much much higher. Additionally the great majority of these require above average infrastructure support and contribute below average support for the infrastructure...medical care for example...making the effect more like 8-10 percent.

So take a 10% cut in your income and consider the impact.

It takes 33 years?

ATLANTA (Reuters) A federal judge refused late on Tuesday to issue a stay of execution for a man who claimed Georgia's supply of lethal injection drug sodium thiopental has "almost certainly" expired, meaning he would be subjected to an unnecessarily painful death.

In his ruling, Judge Timothy C. Batten held inmate Roy Willard Blankenship failed to prove his claims Georgia's supply of the drug has expired.

"Even if Blankenship could show that it was sure or very likely that the sodium pentothal has expired, he has failed to show that the expired drug is less effective and that its use will therefore cause him to needlessly suffer," Batten also ruled.

Georgia claims its stockpile of the drug does not expire until 2014.

Blankenship, sentenced to death for the 1978 murder and rape of a 78-year-old woman, had been scheduled for execution by lethal injection February 9 but the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles issued a stay through February 17.

Sodium thiopental has been in short supply nationally after the only U.S. company that manufactured the drug halted production because it does not want it to be used in executions.
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Thirty-three years after a heinous crime the criminal will be killed in the most humane manner known. Roy Blankenship, for those who don't know, was tried and convicted for the 1978 Savannah rape and murder of 78-year-old Sarah Mims Bowen.
The pathologist described the elderly victim as having been beaten severely about the face, arms and over much of her body. There were numerous signs that the victim had been sexually assaulted and sodomized. The pathologist concluded that there were three possible causes of death: heart attack; heart failure; or strangulation, as indicated by marks on her neck.

Of course due process of law was in full force to do right by Roy:
The Original Trial and Appeal Proceedings (1980-1981)
First Resentencing Trial and Appeal (1982-1983)
Second Resentencing Trial and Appeal (1986-1988)
FirstStateHabeas Proceeding (1989-1992)
First Federal Habeas Corpus Proceeding (1993)
Second Habeas Corpus Proceeding (1993-2005)
Second Federal Habeas Corpus Proceeding (2005-2008)
11th Circuit Court of Appeals (2008)
United StatesSupreme Court (2009-2011)

So! For over 30 years Roy has been fed, housed, given medical care, clothed etc. at a rate of $17,500 (Georgia) which is less than the national average of $28,700...
somewhere between a half a million to $800,000 ... not counting court costs, public attorney, repeated lab tests or the damn paperwork for all this.

The Social Security Administration awarded $250 to Sarah Bowen for her burial.
The cost for a lethal injection of Sodium Pentathol is estimated to be less than $35. Sodium thiopental, is a fast-acting barbiturate (about 10 seconds) and general anesthetic. Along with pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride, thiopental is used in 37 states of the U.S. to execute prisoners by lethal injection. A megadose is given which places the subject into a rapidly induced coma. Executions using the three drug combination are usually effective in approximately 10 minutes.

Sarah, being strangled, was conscious and in extreme pain longer than that before she died. Roy has been alive 30 years beyond that.

I truly think that Roy should be thankful. We spent too much time and money trying to be politically correct. A Muslim, a couple of days after Roy was convicted, would have given him an opportunity to pray to Allah and then beheaded him causing more pain but for a shorter time frame. Justice is swift!