"The great depression is underway" – Celente

Although Washington has avoided defaulting on its debt, US analyst Gerald Celente says the US economy, as well as much of the global economy, is heading into another great depression.

"The great depression is underway, and all they are doing is trying to make it look as though they have a plan to stave it off,” Celente, director of the Trends Research Institute, told RT. “Everything they are doing is not going to salvage it.”While US lawmakers did eventually reach a last-minute deal on managing the country’s debt, all the political wrangling involved has already destroyed the US’s reputation with investors, says Celente.“The reputation is by what you deliver,” he said. “The United States can’t deliver. The United States can’t deliver on its wars – it loses wars whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, the war on drugs, the new war with Libya.”“Everything they do they turn to failure, they’re losers at everything that they touch,” he added. The ratings agencies S&P and Moody's have said that nothing less than $4 trillion in spending cuts would allow the US to keep its top AAA credit rating. But Celente says that whether they downgrade the rating or not, the US is downgrading itself.“Gold has gone up to over a $120 an ounce,” he explained. “It is a devaluation of the dollar. It’s been going on for a long time, but they are not calling it devaluation. What they are doing is they are flooding the world markets with cheap dollars, just as the Europeans are doing with cheap euros.”Celente says that “any thinking adult” understands that “the dollar isn’t worth the digital paper it’s printed on.”“The whole world knows what is going on,” he said.