Gerald Celente Reveals Triggers for World Economic Blowup, Gold Breakout

Mike Gleason: It is my privilege now to welcome in Gerald Celente, publisher of the renowned Trends Journal. Mr. Celente is perhaps most well-known trends forecaster in the world and it's always a joy to speak with him.

Mr. Celente, thanks for the time again today and welcome back.

Gerald Celente: Oh, thanks for having me on, Mike.

Mike Gleason: Well, Gerald, the Trends Journal is forecasting Economic 9/11 as one of the big trends for 2019. There are plenty of indicators which just support your thesis for a major slowdown. Debt levels – both public and private – have exploded, China is slowing down and all the stimulus in Europe has failed to generate results there. Higher interest rates are hurting, everything from real estate to auto sales, et cetera. But none of this is reflected in the stock markets, which are roaring higher. Once again, it looks like the Fed is up to its old tricks, promising to stop the rate hikes they had planned and end the program for selling bonds. The constant intervention of the Fed has always been one of the major wildcards when trying to predict where things are headed in recent years. What do you think? Can the central bankers kick the can one more time to avoid a recession, or are they finally going to lose control in the months ahead?

Gerald Celente: Well, I think you've summed everything up pretty well in analyzing it, and the general situation. When we made that forecast of an Economic 9/11, remember how trends for the new year go out in December. In December, we just saw the Dow have its worst month since the Great Depression, and all of a sudden on January 4th, 2019 it all turned around. What happened was the Federal Reserve Chairman bent over to Trump, and he backtracked on his aggressive stance of 2018, where they raised interest rates four times and they were scheduled to raise them three to four more times in 2019. He said he would be patient. In late January, they said it again that they would be patient. They were in no hurry raising interest rates. That changed our forecast, because what they've done is they've injected more monetary methadone into the bull to keep it running. You can see what was happening when they were going to pull the needle out.

The bull was dying, it was OD’ing already, and now they just got it going once again. And you mentioned wildcard, and that's exactly why nobody could predict the future. There are too many wildcards, whether they're man made, or made by Mother Nature. Well, of course now I have to be proper and politically correct, whether women-made or made by father nature. What happened was they played the wildcard, and the fact is whether it was fear of a fed audit, or just pressure from Trump, we listed all the times he called the Fed loco and crazy, and how disgusted he was with them throughout 2018, beginning in July, until they did a backtrack. So, now what we're looking at, Mike, it's the presidential reality show’s already heating up and Trump is going to do everything he can to keep the economy pumping along, or I should say Trumping along.

Remember, the cat’s in the real estate business. To his son in law, the family, the Cushners. It's real estate. You mentioned about real estate prices going down. I mean what happened in December, we saw southern California home sales plunge 20% in December to the lowest pace in 11 years. So, when those interest rates got around 5% for a 30-year mortgage, you could see the big reversal. Not only do we see the Fed not raising interest rates in 2019, we could see them aggressively bringing them down, if the economy starts to slow down. They raised them nine times since 2015, they could lower them nine times.

Mike Gleason: This year certainly has the potential to be one for the history books in Europe. We spoke when you were last with us in December about the Yellow Jacket protests in France. They are ongoing, and there is reason to think they may be a bigger deal than the conventional media is letting on. It is possible that president Macron may be forced out, which would be quite a populous victory. There should also be finally a resolution with regards to Brexit in the months ahead. What is your take on the events in Europe, Gerald? Will the populous and anti-EU forces be able to win this year or will establishment forces be able to fend off these attacks for a while longer yet?

Gerald Celente: Well, they're doing the best to fend them off. You mentioned Macron and you had, his popularity rating was down to 27%. Now it's moved back up a bit to a 32%. They are really, really doing everything they can to stop the protest from going. You know with hypocrisy, by the way, in the way the media covers what's going on in Venezuela. When a few people were killed a week or so ago when they were trying to bring in that so called humanitarian aid, and then you look what's going on in France and how many people have been killed and the violence, with the rubber bullets being shot out at them and people losing their eyes and on and on, and how the difference in the coverage is. In France, it's okay. In Venezuela, it's terrible.

So, we think what's going to happen in Europe is they're going to do everything they can to suppress any kind of populous movements. And we're going to see what happens with the elections coming up for the European Parliament later this year. And that's going to give us the indicator of how deeply the populous movement are moving in. Right now it's a war between those that want more globalism, and those don't want to retain their culture, their nationality, and their ethnic identity.

Mike Gleason: You touched on it there, but how about Venezuela, Gerald? What is your take on what's happening there as the U.S. looks to exert some of its influence to overthrow the Maduro regime? And then, let's also get your comments about Venezuela not being able to get its gold back. What do you make of events there?

Gerald Celente: Well, again, you know, this is the perfect example of what America has been doing in Central America for over a hundred years. You could not be clearer than it's a coup attempt. And I love the language they used, by the way. You know this guy, Guaido, he, all of a sudden, declares himself (and says) “I’m the interim president of Venezuela.” And of course, we covered this very deeply in our Trends Journal that he was brought to the United States prior to that a number of times, and this is an outright coup attempt. In our November Trends Journal, remember this didn't happen until January, late January. Our November Trends Journal, there as a keynote story. It's called the Triangle of Death. And we had forecasted that Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina would form a triangle of death aimed at Venezuela with the United States behind the movement. And that's precisely what has happened.

That's what the Trends Journal is about. You can't make this stuff up where you've got a bunch of clowns out there talking about bringing democracy to Venezuela. How many times have I heard that BS in my life? Oh yeah, you're going to do it in Iraq, right? No, no, it was Libya. I got it, Syria, Assad has to go. We need democracy. One time after another. It's all about oil. If their major export was broccoli and not oil, there'd be no demands by America's presidents, Obama and Bush, to spill blood and destroy those oil rich sovereign nations that I named. And the same thing about Venezuela, and if you don't believe me, ask the clown that's playing our national security adviser, John Bolton. Quote, "We're in conversation with major American companies now. It would make a difference if we could have American companies produce the oil in Venezuela. It would be good for the people of the United States." End quote.

Mike Gleason: It's kind of what it's all about. It's always about oil. Just follow the oil and sure enough, there you go. Conflict seems to surround it.

Switching gears here a little bit, gold and silver prices are certainly holding up well here given the rally in the stock markets and the relative strength in the US dollar, it's hard to have too much confidence in the paper prices of metals, as we've talked about before. There's been a too much evidence of rigging and cheating by the bullion banks with the tacit blessing of the regulators, including the Fed. We don't think they can control the markets forever, particularly the physical bullion markets.

There is an ongoing investigation by the Department of Justice into the metals rigging and the FBI is getting cooperation from a former JP Morgan trader as well as the documents and recordings turned over by Deutsche Bank a couple of years ago. And there are some civil class action suits, pending attorneys there are watching the progress for the criminal investigation licking their chops. So, this is new territory. Please give us your thoughts if you would, if you've been following the story at all, and then please tell us what you think generally about the metals markets here, Gerald.

Gerald Celente: It will be like everything else. You know what I mean? Look at the bankers that were convicted of fraud, outright fraud. Five major banks. Did you see any heads roll? Did anything change? Nothing will change. It'll come in and go out. However, what the central banks are doing, as you well know, is they bought more gold in 2018 than they did in a half century. So, they know this whole Ponzi scheme of a $250 trillion debt bubble is going to explode. The reality is no one knows when. We can make the forecast based on the current events forming future trends. But again, what happened was out of nowhere, the Federal Reserve chairman comes out on a day where the employment numbers come out, on January 4th, and we created over 300,000 jobs, and it showed that the yearly increases of wages was the best in 10 years. Two reasons not to “be patient” with interest rates.

They should have raised them with that kind of data. What I'm saying Mike, is you never know. What's going to bring this market down, as we see it, is a wildcard event. That's what's going to do it. Something that you can't predict, be it a war with, well look at the war now, you know, the war talk going on and the bombing runs committed by Pakistan and India. What if those two nuclear armed countries go at it? What happens if the push for war with Iran that keeps heating up is ignited? You'll see oil prices go $100 a barrel. You kiss the markets and world economies goodbye.

So, that's where gold comes in. It's the safe-haven asset. I've been on your show a lot of times and I've been saying for I don't know how long that the bottom price of gold is $1,200. I said it all of 2018, I believe it hit $1,185 for a day or two, and now it's over $1,300 an ounce. We keep saying it has to break over $1,385 to gain strength, and the breakout point is $1,450. I've been saying that for nearly, it's going on six years almost and it hasn't done that. When it breaks over the $1,450 mark, we believe it will spike to the $2,000 mark.

Mike Gleason: Getting back to something you touched on earlier with the Federal Reserve likely not looking to raise interest rates this year at all, maybe even cutting. When the markets sort of start to realize that that's what's happening, is that maybe one of those kind of explosive situations for precious metals? Once the real interest rates actually turn negative?

Gerald Celente: It'll put more cheap money into the system, but it will be positive for gold because the more expensive that dollar gets, the opportunity holding of course of gold becomes less attractive. The cheaper the dollar, the lower the dollar, the lower interest rates, the more attractive gold becomes. Again, we don't see at this point, despite the pressures going on globally with Japan, and Europe, and China and an economic slowdown, we don't see a recession right now in the United States, particularly because they are going to do everything they can to generate a moderately strong economy prior to the 2020 elections.

Mike Gleason: Well, finally, as we close here, do you have any final thoughts for investors about any other trends that you may be watching that we perhaps didn't touch on? Then also, anything else that you care to mention as we wrap up here today?

Gerald Celente: Well yeah. The things to look at, where the markets are also going of course, are copper prices, Doctor Copper it's called in the trade. That means that copper is an indicator of the health of the global economy. Right now we're seeing copper having about a 12% increase this year. It's still relatively low, but it's up from July 2018, again at 12% hit this year, and it's showing strength. And China is one of the largest purchases of copper. They get over 50% of the new stuff developed. So, it shows us that yes, there's going to be a slowdown again, but not a decline. One of the big trends that we keep watching, and we've been on this, one of the first, with the Trends Journal, and that's the whole cannabis trend. This is just the beginning of it. We're in 1933 and they just lifted prohibition, and everybody's getting any alcohol business. But this is even much bigger, because not only the cannabis in terms of hemp being legalized, and all the medical benefits of cannabis are going to be explored more and more.

As I say, if the planet could feed us could it heal us? The irony of all this, by the way, is the same criminals that criminalized it, that ruined the lives of millions of people for smoking a joint, to getting caught selling an ounce, and throwing them in jail, and three strikes they're out. The millions, when you add up the families that were destroyed, probably the tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions over the decades. These are the same criminals now that are giving us the regulations to de-legalize God's plant. And of course, the only reason this political mafia is involved in it is because they want their cut. That's called taxes.

You have places like New Jersey over here where they're going to put $42 an ounce tax on it, it's a criminal operation, and that's the only reason they're legalizing. It should have always been legal. But the reason they're legalizing it is just to get more money from taxes, because we're talking about that debt bubble, and you got one blowing up everywhere. They need more money and will do anything they can to get it. You're going to see this whole cannabis trend continuing to explode globally.

Mike Gleason: Well, we'll leave it there for now, Gerald. We really appreciate the time once again today, and before we let you go, please fill folks in on what's going on there at the Trends Journal and the Trends Research Institute, what they need know and how they can start getting the wonderful information that you put out there on a regular basis.

Gerald Celente: Well, they can go to TrendsJournal.com, and of course we put out the monthly Trends Journal. Trends Alerts each week, Trends in the News Broadcasts, and now starting on February 27th, we're launching Trend Vision 2020 Podcasts. They'll also be getting those as well. It's TrendsJournal.com, it's only $10 and 75 cents a month.

Mike Gleason: Well thanks again Mr. Celente, we really enjoyed having you on as always, and thanks for the time. Until next time, take care and have a great weekend.

Gerald Celente: And thank you, Mike.

Mike Gleason: Well, that will do it for this week. Our sincere thanks, again, to Gerald Celente, publisher of the renowned Trends Journal. For more information, the website again is TrendsJournal.com, be sure to check that out.