About a year ago Celente's dire predictions were mentioned on Fox News. One of the anchors dismissed him curtly as "just some trend analyst." In other words, he had no special credibility.

Not long after he was being touted by the same Fox News as "the only analyst who accurately predicted the fall of the Soviet Union."

For all I know he was. But more to the point: what's his batting average? How many other successful (and supposedly unexpected) prophecies like the fall of the Soviet Union has he made in the last twenty years?

Some folks may recall the late Jean Dixon. She didn't use socioeconomic charts, just the stars and her prophetic gifts. Years after the events she became famous for having "predicted the assassination of JFK." What she said in 1956, however, was that whoever was elected in 1960 (she didn't name names) would somehow die in office.

During the actual 1960 election, she prophesied that Richard Nixon would win. As Dixon rose to media fame, other predictions, for example that nuclear World War III would start in 1958, were ignored. Only her very rare hits "counted."

Point: with enough rooting, even a blind hog can find an occasional truffle. We need to know a lot more about Celente's track record before we can credit him with astonishing and terrifying success. It would also be good to know what the most learned economists,   sociologists, big-time investors (like Warren Buffett), and so on think about his record and his most (shall I say "appealing"?) predictions.

If Celente is as confident in his predictions as some of his fans are, has he shared his methods and insights with the Administration in a desperate attempt to the save the nation? That would be the ethical patriotic thing to do. How about with the Republican National Committee? If he's such a crackerjack, they should embrace his findings and urge them on the President officially. I think they would have already - if he were as good as he says.