[Paslode]

Originally Posted by nmap

If I may add a prediction from The Trends Journal, by Gerald Celente...

It is written from the perspective of an observer in 2012.

Celente has quite a good track record, and has been featured on CNBC.

His website is HERE

Excerpt:

In the US, up to 2009, a good portion of violence was gang-on-gang and drug related, but it would not stay that way. The American appetite for drugs, though huge, had its limits. 20,000 gangs vying for the same market produced a power struggle that saw individual gangs looking to both diversify and merge with competitors. Other businesses gangs were involved in included auto theft, assault, burglary, extortion, home invasion robberies, homicide, identity theft, insurance fraud, mortgage fraud, prostitution rings and weapons trafficking.

But the most profitable gangland business model imported into the US from Mexico was kidnapping. Between 2007 and 2009, nearly 700 kidnappings for ransom were recorded in Phoenix. These were confined almost exclusively to Latinos involved in the drug or immigrant-trafficking industries.

But by 2012, Phoenix, along with Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, New York City … would look like Mexico City. Kidnapping would become an equal opportunity criminal occupation with extraordinary profit potential. It would expand exponentially beyond the current Latino/drug/trafficking market sectors to include anyone (white, black, old, young) able, or thought to be able, to pay a high ransom.

A far cry from Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.....scary stuff.