Let's see if Celente is right or wrong - 2008 is out soon, but he may just miss the mark if this happens in 2009. http://www.upi.com/Business_News/20...ollar_could_plunge_90_pct/UPI-48761195499806/ Business News View archive | RSS Feed Forecast: U.S. dollar could plunge 90 pct RHINEBECK, N.Y., Nov. 19 (UPI) -- A financial crisis will likely send the U.S. dollar into a free fall of as much as 90 percent and gold soaring to $2,000 an ounce, a trends researcher said. "We are going to see economic times the likes of which no living person has seen," Trends Research Institute Director Gerald Celente said, forecasting a "Panic of 2008." "The bigger they are, the harder they'll fall," he said in an interview with New York's Hudson Valley Business Journal. Celente -- who forecast the subprime mortgage financial crisis and the dollar's decline a year ago and gold's current rise in May -- told the newspaper the subprime mortgage meltdown was just the first "small, high-risk segment of the market" to collapse. Derivative dealers, hedge funds, buyout firms and other market players will also unravel, he said. Massive corporate losses, such as those recently posted by Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) and General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM), will also be fairly common "for some time to come," he said. He said he would not "be surprised if giants tumble to their deaths," Celente said. The Panic of 2008 will lead to a lower U.S. standard of living, he said. A result will be a drop in holiday spending a year from now, followed by a permanent end of the "retail holiday frenzy" that has driven the U.S. economy since the 1940s, he said.
I can build a bearish case for starvation in the streets etc but Celente is still an idiot. The entire situation is global. The U.S. is no more indebted or leveraged or fat than a few dozen other developed economies. Hence as soon as someone talks about U.S. dollar specific crisis they lose cred with me. I sure hope this guy has<strike>n't</strike> been long the dollars of Canada and Australia, Cable or Reals the past few months. Yes in relation to Gold I expect dollar declines but that isn't a dollar play it's a currency play.