On Coast to Coast AM last night:

Meltdown: The Economy & Oil
In a special program looking at issues surrounding oil & the economy, trends analyst Gerald Celente appeared for the full show. He was joined by investment advisor Catherine Austin Fitts in the third hour, and oil expert Matt Savinar in the last hour.

The dollar has lost 41% of its value during the Bush administration, and we're going to see company failures so big they won't be able to be bailed out, like Bear Stearns, said Celente. He cited the Federal Reserve, which functions as a private company with no congressional oversight, as one of the major problems. Predicting food & gas riots, as well as tax revolts, Celente suggested diversifying your savings among a number of banks, if you have more than $100,000.

Catherine Austin Fitts commented that the demise of Bear Stearns may have been a hit job, "cannibalized" for the good of other finance companies. There is an effort underway to centralize the economy and shift assets away from local communities, she warned. Fitts described these efforts as "economic warfare" being conducted on a global scale, that is fostered by technology and "invisible weaponry," such as satellites. The US economy is being purposely "pumped and dumped," she noted.

Matt Savinar said global oil supplies have plateaued, and with lessening oil reserves it becomes increasingly expensive to bring up the remaining oil. Prices will continue to skyrocket upwards, he suggested, as we enter the down side of "peak oil." Tapping unused reserves in the United States and Canada will only postpone the problem for a short time, and the theory of abiotic oil is a kind of misinformation, Savinar argued. The oil crisis is an "economic 9-11," and we're going to see a crash worse than the Great Depression, Celente added.