Now: “Lagging Recognition” is James Howard Kunstler’s  (author of “The Long Emergency” and “World Made by Hand“) post today brought to us via lifeaftertheoilcrash.net. Mr. Kunstler is a noted author and commentator on current world, and especially U.S., conditions. His current post discusses some important aspects of our present condition and here is some of that discussion:

• “Here in the USA, we will mount the most strenuous campaign to keep the motoring system going — in fact, we’re already doing it — but it will fail just as surely as two (so far) of the “big three” automakers have failed. It will fail because car-making is only one facet of a larger network of systems that is coming undone, namely a revolving debt cheap energy economy.”
• “American’s will never again buy as many new cars as they were able to do before 2008 on the terms that were normal until then: installment loans. Our credit system is completely broken. It choked to death on securitized debt engineered by computer magic and business school hubris. That complex of frauds and swindles coincided with the background force of peak oil, which meant, among other things, that economic growth based on ever-increasing energy resources was over, and along with it ever-increasing credit. What it boils down to now is that we can’t service our debt at any level, personal, corporate, or government — and that translates into comprehensive societal bankruptcy.”
• “The efforts of our federal government to work around this now, to cover up the “non-performing” debt and to generate the new lending necessary to keep the old system going, is a tragic exercise in futility.”

The Future: From humanevents.com on 6/7/09 we read this headline, “Exclusive Interview with Future Prediction Expert Gerald Celente” by Terry Easton. And this sub-line, “It’s the end of the world as the Greater Depression hits after 2010’s failed “W – recovery”.

This interview with the head of Trends Report ( TRI, a company “… successfully predicting the major future trends impacting our lives for three decades.“) whose predictions are historically based combined with a following of “… over three hundred trends: family, crime, education, consumer and business patterns which TRI synthesizes to predict the future.” Here are some of Mr. Celente’s predictions:

• “Our society is now based on consumption — 70% of the GDP. This is more than we produce. So to pay our bills, we use funny money invented in 1913 with the creation of the Federal Reserve and the fiat dollar based on credit (debt) — the fractional reserve system. … Now you borrow what you can’t afford – and the nation’s doing the same.”
• “Mr. Celente predicts the use of printing press money will cause the “greater depression.”
• “The key to watch is Christmas sales. They’ll fall. Christmas will be when reality sets in.”
• The interviewer asks, “Will the dollar survive?” and Mr. Celente answers: “So, it’s not that the dollar will survive. We may not survive. Look at the German mess after WW1. …”

A Personal Strategy: “Fed giving ‘lip service’ to fiscal responsibility” says WorldNetDaily’s post headline (wnd.com) today. The article features some discussions with Dr, Martin Weiss, financial advisor (and analyst and president of Weiss Research))on the “… impact of out-of-control deficits”. Here’s his advice for “everyone”:

“Weiss recommends everyone “make severe sacrifices in order to save money and to build cash reserves for future bad times.”

The people who have been correct in their analysis of events in the past are now almost unanimous in their concerns for the future. PrudentHome.com believes that we as individuals and families should also be concerned and prepare.

We plan to discuss sustainability in the next few days and hope you will join us. Until then, keep your eyes on the horizon as the weathers changing fast.

The article, referenced by the headline above, leads with, “In a bleaker assessment than those of most private forecasters, the World bank predicted Sunday that the global economy would shrink in 2009 for the first time since WW ll.” The World Bank continued it’s stark evaluation by noting that “…global trade would contract for the first time since 1982, and that the decline would be the biggest since the 1930’s.“

The World bank’s report also referenced the global economic crisis by noting that it would even more dramatically effect the world’s poorer nations by restricting their growth and their access to credit. The report added that the crisis would almost certainly surpass the abilities of international lending institutions, such as itself and the IMF, to provide the necessary funds to backstop the it’s effects.

Tomorrow–The USA: lifeaftertheoilcrash.net recently (3/08/09) provided access to an interview with Gerald Celente, the head of Trends Research Institute, entitled “I’m Expecting Food Riots to Break Out Across the U.S.”

The interview’s title alone might be cause to skip the interview, putting it down as just another sensational statement in a time given to a lot sensational statements. That might be a mistake.

Trends Research Institute has a very strong record when it comes to predicting economic and social changes. The Wall Street Journal notes that “Those who take their predictions seriously consider the Trends Research Institute.” and the prestigious financial publication “The Economist” notes that the ‘Institute’ has “A network of 25 experts whose range of specialties would rival many university faculties.”

With these things in mind, we present some highlights of the interview beyond the headline:

• We are currently in the midst of a global financial meltdown.
• Washington can’t come up with a solution and keeps throwing good money after bad.
• The game is over and any other view is a delusion.
• The market declines every time someone (including the President) gives a statement/interview.
• We are going into the Greatest Depression the world has ever seen.
• Levels of crime and violence will exceed those we’ve ever seen.
• Baby Boomers are unprepared for this situation: leading household incomes in the U.S. below 1999 levels and they‘re broke..
• Violence in this depression will be our greatest fear.

Mr. Celente’s views are stark and dark. Our view at Prudent Home is that no one can precisely predict the future and the effects of any future are very much determined by the responses of individuals and families. It’s with this in mind that we’re going to be shifting our emphasis a little here to provide a very positive “What-you-can-do and how-to-do-it” day in the middle of the week (and in the middle of all this doom-and-gloom). We’ll begin with our next post.

Until the middle of the week then, keep your eyes on the horizon as the weather’s changing fast.

#1. “Gerald Celente: “Code Red Alert, economy in collapse, drastic measures to be taken, possible bank holidays, gold confiscation, and mega-bailouts”

“We are forecasting dramatic measures will soon be taken by the Obama Administration that will worsen the credit crisis and severely damage the nation’s economic system,” says Celente. For example, Timothy Geitner, President Obama’s nominee for Treasury Secretary, has pledged to expand and prolong government intervention in the financial markets. He said his economic team would take “forceful” and “substantial action” on a “very dramatic scale” to “forge an integrated strategy on how best to achieve currency realignment.”

Celente advises to closely read the signals that have been clearly telegraphed by Mr. Geitner. “From proclaiming a bank holiday, confiscating gold to backstop devaluing currencies, mega-bailouts for the too-big-to-fail to nationalizing public firms and dollar devaluation…

#2. “Message from Mike Ruppert Regarding Economic Riots in Europe and the Potential for Civil Unrest/Violence in Michigan, California, and Ohio”

“The three likeliest states to have civil unrest first are Michigan, California and Ohio. These are the states hardest hit by job cuts. California…The “fires” here would be rapidly “extinguished” by a state that has well developed and longstanding historical plans for civil unrest… . Michigan is geographically off to the side and already something of a “wasteland”. … But Ohio… already devastated by auto layoffs and other massive corporate failures, Ohio’s industrial areas border are in close proximity to Kentucky, West Virginia, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. Lots of kindling in those states. …

Finally, from survivalblog.com on 2/19/09, in the section “Items from Economatrix”, comes this headline; “ Bad News From America’s Top Spy” (by Chris Hughes).

“… when Washington’s new director of national intelligence, retired Adm. Dennis Blair, testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee. He warned that the deepening economic crisis posed perhaps our gravest threat to stability and national security. It could trigger, he said, a return to the ‘ violent extremism’ of the 1920’s and 1930’s.”

The article continues, “The specter of social unrest was raised at the U.S. Army War College in November in a monograph titled ‘Known Unknowns: Unconventional ‘Strategic Shocks’ in Defense Strategy Development.’” The military must be prepared, the document warned, for a violent, strategic dislocation inside the united States “which could be provoked by ‘unforeseen economic collapse, purposeful domestic resistance pervasive public health emergencies’ or ‘loss of functioning political and legal order.” The “widespread civil violence,” the document said, “would force the defense establishment to defend basic domestic order and human security.”

The piece continues on a bit and then closes with: “ … this translates into the imposition of martial law and a de facto government being run out of the Department of Defense. They are considering it. So should you.”

A LITTLE GOOD NEWS: While we can’t do a lot about the weather itself, we can by watching it closely, put ourselves in a position to prepare ourselves and our families to withstand it’s effects. That’s what we’re all about here at PrudentHome; knowing and preparing.

Again, next week we’ll be looking into some of sustainable home gardening’s sources and methods: preparing.

Until out next post, keep your eyes on the horizon as the weather’s changing fast.