Futurists are an interesting lot.  They try to extrapolate from today's events and trends to tell us what our future holds.  Some are better at it than others, but by and large, they aren't much more prescient than the rest of us.  Anyhow, today off a Fark link, I saw this article about, OMG PANIC THE END, containing the predictions of Gerald Celente.  

What annoyed me a bit was how clearly the predictions were pulled from PR released by Celente himself.  Example:

The man who predicted the 1987 stock market crash and the fall of the Soviet Union is now forecasting revolution in America, food riots and tax rebellions - all within four years, while cautioning that putting food on the table will be a more pressing concern than buying Christmas gifts by 2012.

So we have presented evidence of his prognostication prowess and then his inevitable proposition that we're all deeply screwed.  Of course there's no context for when his predictions were made and any details of what exactly he predicted.  I can tell you right now we're going to have another stock market crash in this century.  So when that happens, I will totally take credit for predicting it. 

Anyhow, my annoyance lead to research.  I decided to go do some Googling to find his other predictions.  Unfortunately I couldn't find anything going back to his actual 1987 prediction.  It says something to me that this guy doesn't even have a Wikipedia entry about him.  However I did find this nugget in a March 31, 2003 article in the Hartford Courant:

"The revolution has begun," said Gerald Celente, director and founder of the Trends Research Institute in Rhinebeck, N.Y., and author of "Trends 2000." He said that the anti-war protests in the United States and around the world are part of a broad, anti- corporate, anti-greed movement that predates the threat of war in Iraq. However, the war and protests against it are accelerating these linked movements.

...

He said the result could be social and political change more dramatic than the turmoil of the 1960s. Globally, he said, there is already a backlash against American products and culture.

Actually, the number of these protests world wide have diminished since that time.  This isn't surprising given that the article is from roughly two weeks after the Iraq war started.  The protests ultimately lead to little in the way of real change.  The country in turmoil ended up releecting the same failed president and didn't finally get its act together to change direction until 2006.  Continuing that trend, they then went on to elect Obama in 2008.  Wow, people voting.  The revolution really has begun hasn't it?

Oh and I found that book on Amazon, Trends 2000.  I literally LOL'd when I saw this prediction:

The next dramatic shift in the momentum of the digital revolution will take place with the perfection of ... the videophone!

I figured if I read far enough into the book I'd find out when I'm finally getting my flying car! 

There is value in trying to figure out what will happen in the future, but people who make their livings off the concept seem like nothing but the worst kind hucksters.  They make hundreds of predictions, get a few right, and then use the fact that they got those few right to claim how brilliant they are.  All of it is based on extrapolation of existing trends.  Sometimes they are right because the trend continues and sometimes they are wrong because the trend changes.  I will be the first to tell you that we have a lot imbalances that need to be corrected and the next couple of years are going to suck, but food riots and tax rebellions in the United States?  Not bloody likely.