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"We Will Recover," Says
Obama. "No We Won't," Says Celente; Government
Policies Doomed to Fail |
KINGSTON, NY, 27 February
2009 -- The wealth of plain, hard facts upon which The
Trends Research Institute's forecasts are based belie
the lofty promises made by President Obama's first
address to Congress.
"We will rebuild, we will
recover, and the United States of America will emerge
stronger than before," said President Obama.
Said Celente, "The
government has yet to fix the levees in New Orleans.
There is still a hole in the ground where the World
Trade Center once stood. Washington has started two
wars it can't win and doesn't know how to finish. The
massive bank, brokerage, auto and insurance company
bailouts have done nothing to resuscitate the sinking
economy. The Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP)
that candidate Obama championed has not "relieved."
President Obama's $787 billion American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act will not lead to recovery and the
nation will not 'emerge stronger than before,'"
Celente continued.
Distinguished Men and
Women
With only a succession of
past Executive and Congressional failures to point to,
and with the same people responsible for those
failures still holding high office, the belief that
this time around it will be miraculously different is
nothing less than willful delusion.
"Tuesday's episode of The
Presidential Reality Show was a prime time exercise in
human debasement and self-humiliation," said Celente.
Some low lights: Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY)
arrived at 8:30 a.m. to secure a prized spot on the
House floor for a chance to shake the President's hand
on his way to the stage. "It's a special treat for me
to do it this year," Engel said, adding, "It's the
office, it's the aura ... but it's also the man."
Hillary Clinton, America's
new superstar Secretary of State, regally acknowledged
the dutiful cheers of lesser political lights as she
strolled down the House's aisle.
Shiny Cabinet members and
august Supreme Court justices were announced in
stentorian tones by a pair of Sergeants-at-Arms with
all the exaggerated pomp of a Groucho Marx send-up of
British royalty.
And, to punctuate the
performance, there was the geriatric pom-pom girl,
Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, repeatedly jumping
from her seat, leading her pack of Democratic trained
seals in whoops of applause at every repetition of the
magic juju words: "Jobs!" "Prosperity!" "Confidence!"
Across the aisle,
Republicans smirked, mugged and scowled darkly, in
their new roles as minority villains. Few GOP hands
clapped.
That the public as well as the press should take this
three-ring spectacle seriously is as depressing an
indication of the state of the nation as the empty
rhetoric of the speech itself.
Meanwhile, back on the
planet, in the midst of a global economic crisis, the
public continues to pin its hopes on a President,
Senators and Congressmen willingly participating in
such obviously orchestrated buffoonery. How is this
even possible? How is such behavior tolerated? Why
would anyone look up to these people?
In one sense it is
understandable: President Obama's big show was just
another typical political performance. From the
excesses of Democratic and Republican nominating
conventions, to photo ops of candidates sitting on
bales of hay pretending they're just plain folks, to
staging whistle stops from vintage trains dragged out
of storage especially for the occasion, to contrived
Town Hall meetings, to the slick and vicious marketing
campaigns ... the public has come to accept such
antics as "normal."
These political rituals,
carefully staged, time-tested and proven, create an
illusion of superiority. President Obama made the
distinction clear in Tuesday's speech: "I have come
here tonight not only to address the distinguished men
and women of this great chamber, but to speak frankly
and directly to the men and women who sent us here."
"Distinguished?"
Distinguished for what? Having the skills to do
whatever they have to do -- no matter how ruthless or
degrading -- to win elections? Yet, the honorific is
accepted without question while the implicit
patronization of the citizenry slips by unperceived.
They are "distinguished" and the rest are merely the
"men and women who sent them there."
Con Game
This is a confidence game.
The elaborate staging is designed to inspire the
nation's people with "confidence" that their
distinguished leaders have the skills to save them
from an economic disaster that both political parties
were instrumental in creating.
Just days earlier, former
President Bill Clinton urged the new President to play
the confidence game. "I just want the American people
to know that he's confident that we are gonna get out
of this and he feels good about the long run," and
that President Obama "... is hopeful and completely
convinced we're gonna come through this," Clinton said
on national TV.
"Completely convinced" or
not, in his speech, the newly elected President
pitched "confidence," repeating the word seven times.
It worked. Post speech polls, the pundits and the
press gave the President high marks for his
performance. And President Obama, the most
distinguished among all those "distinguished men and
women of this great chamber," established his
credentials as America's Confidence-Man-in-Chief.
Trendpost: What is a
Confidence Man and what makes us say President Obama
is conning the public? A con man succeeds by gaining
the confidence of the victim. In this case the victim
is the taxpayer who is being shaken down for trillions
to bail out "too big to fail" businesses. The con lies
in Obama's assurance "... while the cost of action
will be great, I can assure you that the cost of
inaction will be far greater."
The trillions already spent
on bailouts and buyouts make it clear "the cost of
action will be great." It is already great, and it has
failed miserably. Why should anyone believe that
pouring still more trillions into the same bottomless
pit will now, somehow, prove effective?
And why should anyone
believe Obama's assurance that the "cost of inaction
will be far greater"? He doesn't know that. Why
believe the assurance of the man who failed to
recognize the country was in recession until eight
months after the recession began?
We forecast the recession
well before it happened. We are forecasting the
"Greatest Depression." And having analyzed Mr. Obama's
speech, promises and plans, we can forecast, with
assurance of our own, that the cost of action will
prove far greater than the cost of inaction.
While the public, both at
home and abroad, express high hopes and great
optimism, the global financial markets remain
unassured by the assurances and continue to reach new
lows.
Trendpost: President Obama's
$3.6 trillion budget and the additional trillions
earmarked for stimulus packages and further bailouts
may provide temporary relief, but will ultimately
destroy the value of the US dollar. The global
financial system is in collapse. And neither stimulus
nor spending packages will reverse it. We remain
bullish on gold and stand by our prediction of gold at
$2000 per ounce. (See Trends in the News® "Gold
$2000," 7 November 2007.) |
