Gerald Celente’s TRENDSJOURNAL.COM | FORECASTING WORLDWIDE SINCE 1980 | SUMMER 2017

HISTORY BEFORE IT HAPPENS®

Market crash? Market correction? Here’s the trend

➤ SPECIAL GIFT POSTER: CELENTE’S STATE OF THE UNION IN THIS ISSUE

HISTORY BEFORE IT HAPPENS® ®

Editor and Publisher Gerald Celente Executive Editor Derek Osenenko Contributing Editors Dr. Paul Craig Roberts Bennett Daviss Eldad Benary Operations Manager David Cagan Illustrations Anthony Freda Design Shutterstock Creative Circle Media Solutions, COVER STORY East Providence, RI Cover: Shutterstock Crash? All rights reserved. For permission to reproduce or translate material from The Trends Journal®, con- tact The Trends Research Institute. The Trends Journal (ISSN 1065- Correction? 2094) is published quarterly by The Trends Research Institute. Are equity markets overvalued and ready to tank? ©2017. Globalnomics, Trends Journal, Trend Alert, Trends in The What about gold? 2 News, History Before it Happens and Presidential Reality Show are registered trademarks of the Trends Research Institute.

The Trends Research Institute contributors Derek Osenenko (“America’s P.O. Box 3476 Shadow: Donald Trump,” p. Kingston, NY 12402 Gerald Celente (“Crash? Correction?,” 8; “Pure propaganda,” p. 18; 845 331-3500 p. 2; and “Pure propaganda,” “Cryptocurrencies powering www.trendsresearch.com p. 18) is the publisher of the ahead as the new world order,” p. Trends Journal and director of 31; and “Self-driving cars: Good bet the Trends Research Institute, or a money pit,” p. 39) is the executive editor of which he founded in 1980. The the Trends Journal, and chief executive officer and pioneer trends forecaster is a president of the Trends Research Institute. He has Printed on recycled paper best-selling author and known a lengthy history as a senior news-media executive, throughout the world as a trends managing several award-winning newsrooms for analyst with expertise in a variety of areas. major media companies including Dow Jones, Gannett Co., Inc. and GateHouse Media.

THE TRENDS JOURNAL | SUMMER 2017 FEATURES WHAT IN THE WORLD America’s Shadow: Make up your own mind? IS GOING ON? Donald Trump There’s a “Great Divide” within our own Each new day seems Whining, self-described “progressives” brains — and it's eating us alive 34 to bring with it a new helped create Trump 8 geopolitical crisis, one Self-driving cars: more political debacle, Trump presidency safe: Good bet or a money pit? more dire economic warnings, increasing He’s back in military school Beware: The hype continues to outpace social disturbance or Generals in charge of the White House; the real challenges this industry faces 39 another environmental Cadet Trump to follow orders 12 threat. What does it all The next big... BIG thing mean? What can be Pure propaganda Data will dominate our everyday decision- done? How will it end? American presstitute media have a tale to making 42 Gerald Celente’s Trends Journal® is the only tell: Hate Russia! 18 Cities get smart magazine in the world that pinpoints how today’s The Internet of Things is transforming Pullout poster current events form future Here’s a special gift for your beloved family urban centers 44 trends and how they and friends who ignore the facts. 27 will affect your business, Mind meld career, family and future… Cryptocurrencies powering New technologies bring us closer to brain- your life. ahead as the new world order to-brain communication 48 Founded by a political atheist, agenda- and There is no stopping this Biodegradable plastic advertising-free, and strengthening global trend: beholden to no one, the Technology is moving closer 52 No hard cash in your future 31 Trends Journal provides unbiased insights, analysis and forecasts of critical TRENDING 53 socioeconomic, financial, political, economic, business, consumer/ Poverty's Power grids Older tech Diesel is Printed solar Electric car retail, entertainment, new home go local workers dying panels charging technology, science and other trends that are fact- based, data-driven and on the cutting edge. He makes his home in a part of rural New England Doug Grunther (“Make up your own mind?,” p. Gerald Celente’s track 34) is a popular speaker and radio talk-show host in where chickens still outnumber electronic devices. record speaks for itself. New York's Hudson Valley region. His show, public He’s been forecasting Anthony Freda (illustration pp. 8–9; and engagements and writings focus on spiritual and worldwide since 1980. pullout poster package, pp. 27-30) has created award- No one has been so cultural topics. A graduate of Columbia University, his winning illustrations for publications including The right, on so many issues, hobbies include food, wine and golf. New Yorker, Time, Rolling Stone so often! If you want Bennett Daviss (“Cities get and The New York Times. to anticipate change, take proactive measures smart,” p. 44; and “Mind meld,” Freda considers himself an to seize opportunities p. 48) has been reporting on information warrior, and his and develop profit science, technology, energy and politically charged imagery strategies, subscribe to the environment for more than graces millions of computer Trends Journal. Read 30 years. His articles have appeared screens via a wide spectrum about “History Before It Happens” from the world in Discover, Money, Smithsonian and of mainstream and alternative leader in trend forecasting. more than 40 other publications on four continents. websites and magazines.

SUMMER 2017 | THE TRENDS JOURNAL 1 KEYNOTES

Shutterstock US equity markets, including the New York Stock Exchange, are in their 11th month of the Trump Rally. Crash? Correction? Are equity markets overvalued and ready to tank? What about gold?

By Gerald Celente PUBLISHER I’ve been in the trend-forecasting business nearly 40 years. When you review who accurately forecast market crashes, beginning with the 1987 stock market crash to the Panic of ’08, I, and a handful of others, called them first. Now, a loud chorus of financial experts and eco- steam,” The Wall Street Journal, 28 August 2017 nomic headlines warn of grave stock-market dangers • “China markets tell disparate tales,” The Wall ahead: Street Journal, 28 August 2018 • “ ‘Potential bubbles’ in financial markets already • “Investors pull billions from US stocks in longest exist, warns Deutsche Bank CEO,” CNBC, 6 Septem- outflow streak since 2004,” CNBC, 25 August 2017 ber 2017 • “Wall Street banks are sending warning signals,” • “Brace yourself for a market correction in two Bloomberg, 25 August 2017 months, analysts warn,” CNBC, 5 September 2017 • “Biggest hedge fund manager turns defensive on • “Wall Street’s top bankers sell their own groups’ US political concerns,” Financial Times, 22 August shares as Trump rally reverses,” Financial Times, 28 2017 August 2017 • “Reversal hits small caps,” The Wall Street Jour- • “US banking data suggest economy may be losing nal, 21 August 2017

2 THE TRENDS JOURNAL | SUMMER 2017 keynotes

• “Warning signs mount as stocks stumble,” The Again, tracking trends is an understanding of Wall Street Journal, 21 August 2017 where we are, and how we got here, to forecast • “Investors withdraw $1.6bn from Ems amid geo- where we’re going. political tensions,” Financial Times, 18 August 2017 There was high expectation at the annual central- • “Investor view of earnings sours as White House bank meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in August fails to deliver stimulus,” Financial Times, 16 August that the six central banks — particularly the Euro- 2017 pean Central Bank and US Federal Reserve — would • “Funds don’t buy Europe recovery story,” The announce how and when they would unwind the Wall Street Journal, 3 July 2017. $15 trillion in bonds and other securities they’ve Despite the clarion calls to take cover, markets kept purchased since the Panic of ’08. And, The Street hitting new highs amid temporary pullbacks. This was listening closely for signals from Federal Reserve is important to note. It is not a fluke. When there is Chairwoman Janet Yellen if, when and how much general mainstream consensus that a major market the Fed would raise interest rates. disruption is imminent, those forecasts mostly miss Instead, European Central Bank President Mario the mark. Draghi blabbed on about the glories of globalism, and dangers of protectionism and populist move- TRUMP BUMP ENDING? ments. He said nothing about winding down the Tracking trends is an understanding of where we central-bank bond-buying scheme. Yellen, avoiding are, and how we got here, to understand where we discussion about the US economy and whether it are going. was appropriate to raise interest rates, yapped about Entering the eleventh month of the Trump Rally, pitfalls of the Trump administration weakening US equity markets have soared more than $2 trillion mostly meaningless bank regulations enacted follow- since he was elected. Let’s go back to Election Day, 8 ing the Panic of ’08. November 2016. Mega-billionaire George Soros, who bet big against a Trump victory, also bet big against a Trump market rally. Back in January 2017, the Royal Bank of Scotland advised clients to “sell everything” because “in a crowded hall, the exit doors are small.” At the annual central bank meeting in And all those other economic prophets of doom, Wyoming in August, who have predicted a biblical economic collapse European Central Bank since Election Day, continue to do so. President Mario Draghi, As for the Trends Research Institute, just days after below, didn’t talk about ending the central-bank Donald Trump’s White House win, we did a 180-de- bond-buying scheme. gree shift. Shutterstock We revised our forecast away from negative mar- kets, strong gold prices and a weak economy. With expectations of a Trump White House promoting a more favorable business and investment climate, we predicted rising markets, falling gold prices and a continuation of moderate economic growth.

GAUGING EQUITY MARKETS Indeed, the stock markets hit a streak of new highs, and the economy mirrors the moderate 2 percent Gross Domestic Product growth of the Obama presi- dency. Now, however, gold prices have hit a one-year high. The major reason why prices spiked is the basis for our forecast: There will be a US stock market cor- rection of about 10 percent, but (absent a wild card) not a market crash. Why is gold’s price one harbinger of equity-market strength?

SUMMER 2017 | THE TRENDS JOURNAL 3 keynotes

TREND FORECAST: Assets of the 10 largest central banks have surged from $7 trillion in 2006 to $23 trillion today, according to Renaissance Capital. That’s equivalent to 29 percent of global-stock-market capitaliza- tion, or 43 percent of the world’s tradable fixed-income securities. And, as a result of leading central banks’ massive purchases of bonds and other securi- ties since the Panic of ’08, they now own a fifth of their governments’ total debt, according to the Financial Times and the International Monetary Fund. In total, six central banks There is no greater THE INTEREST-RATE-HIKE GAME economic wild card than The Fed has raised interest rates only three times hold more than $15 trillion in assets, according the Trump card. since 2006. Thus, another modest 25-basis-point rise, to the IMF. That’s more than four times the pre-crisis level. Of this, more than $9 trillion Shutterstock when accounted for cumulative inflation that has are bonds trading at negative yields. increased 21.4 percent since 2006, would, in effect, Therefore, considering central banks’ unprec- place rates deep in negative territory. edented measures to prop up equity markets Indeed, the zero-interest-rate and quantitative- and the banking system following the Panic of easing policies that have driven the market rally ’08 — factors that created asset-price bubbles “injected cocaine and heroin into the system to cre- across the globe, according to the Financial ate a wealth effect,” as former Dallas Fed President Times and IMF — we forecast there will be Richard Fisher noted. market corrections greater than 10 percent. Consequently, both gold’s spike and upward market That will happen when central banks in- momentum after the Jackson Hole meeting were crease interest rates (which will be required based on expectations of central-bank monetary to sell their assets) to levels unacceptable to cocaine and heroin injections sustaining the market financial-market gamblers and real estate de- rally. They also rose a week later following a European velopers. Central Bank meeting during which its president, Mario Draghi, announced that interest rates would TREND FORECAST: While US equity mar- remain at zero and its deposit rate of negative .04 per- kets have continued to rally, primarily due to cent would remain for "an extended period of time." corporate earnings, there is concern it may As for the 60 billion euros per month asset-pur- not sustain if the Trump administration fails chasing program, Draghi said the "bulk of decisions" to stimulate the economy by lowering taxes, will be made sometime in October. cutting regulations, trimming the budget and Thus, absent a wild-card event — and there is no investing in infrastructure. greater wild card than the Trump card — we forecast While there is consensus the White House is a market correction, not a market crash, because in disarray, and Congress is too divided to take stocks are greatly overvalued. decisive measures, we forecast the Republican As the Financial Times noted: “The cyclically ad- majority will pass tax reform and other pro- justed price-to-earnings ratio of the US stock market business measures. Those GOP lawmakers face has been higher only during the peak of the dot-com mid-term elections. They fear defeat if markets boom. And with bond yields still near record lows, crash, the economy contracts and no major initiatives have been implemented. there is mounting evidence of investors turning to convoluted, potentially risky bets in search of pre- cious returns.”

The zero-interest-rate and quantitative-easing policies that have driven the market rally “injected cocaine and heroin into the system to create a wealth effect.” 4 THE TRENDS JOURNAL | SUMMER 2017 keynotes

GOLD ON A ROLL Gold recently hit one-year highs. Will there be a correction? Will gold prices rise? The formula is quite simple. • The higher US interest rates, the lower the price of gold. • The lower the value of the dollar, the higher the price of gold. As noted, at the annual central-bank meeting, there were high expectations that Yellen would signal if interest rates would rise by year’s end. Receiving no hint, futures-market bets fell from 60 percent odds for a rate hike this year to near 35 percent. As for the dollar, it initially spiked to a 14-year high following Trump’s election. There were high investor hopes for tax reform, deregulation and spending via a massive infrastructure-rebuilding effort that would speed economic growth and, in turn, prompt the Fed to raise interest rates. However, the dollar now is down some 10 percent conventional weapons, I don’t know what you’re Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet since Trump’s victory. It has tumbled to its lowest talking about. There’s no military solution here. Yellen’s leadership on level since January 2015. Washington has made little They got us.” whether to hike interest progress in furthering those initiatives, which were Therefore, military confrontations, unless waged rates influences equity expected to generate stronger economic growth. between major powers and inflicting massive casual- markets’ stability — and investors’ actions. More downward dollar pressure pushed gold in ties at enormous costs, do not sustain higher gold Wikipedia early September to one-year highs. That followed prices. weak jobs numbers and tepid wage growth, again lowering expectations for a rate hike by year’s end. TREND FORECAST: Should the Federal And while heating-up war talk with North Korea Reserve significantly raise interest rates and also drove up gold prices, we do not anticipate a mili- the dollar regains its losses, gold could sustain tary confrontation between the United States and its a $100 to $150 downside risk. On the upside, Asian allies against Pyongyang. when gold breaks above $1,400 per ounce and We concur with naysayers including former White maintains growth in the high $1,400 range, we House official Steve Bannon: Considering North forecast it will rapidly spike to $2,000. Korea’s military potential, the US will not launch a pre-emptive strike. “Until somebody solves the China’s yuan-denominated oil contracts are among part of the equation that shows me that 10 million gold’s greatest potential for strong and sustained people in Seoul don’t die in the first 30 minutes from growth. They allow exporters to circumvent the

As the value of the dollar goes down, the value of gold goes up. Shutterstock

SUMMER 2017 | THE TRENDS JOURNAL 5 keynotes

Yankee dollar. Also, to reduce the dollar’s dominance in global trade, China will permit countries under TREND FORECAST: General economic op- sanctions by the US (including Russia, Venezuela and timism persists on a global level. Europe’s Iran) to trade in yuan that’s convertible into gold on economic growth, while tepid, continues to the Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges. gain strength. Brazil is emerging from its worst “It is a mechanism which is likely to appeal to oil recession in over 100 years. While India’s economy, especially small busi- producers that prefer to avoid using dollars, and are ness, was hit by its demonetization-driven not ready to accept that being paid in yuan for oil cash crunch and the rollout of the Goods and sales to China is a good idea either,” noted Alasdair Services Tax that slowed production and hit The flags of China Macleod, head of research at Goldmoney. and Hong Kong flutter manufacturing growth, it still posted 5.7 per- in front of the Hong Once fully implemented beyond just oil trade, and cent GDP growth. While the slowest growth in Kong Exchange. China exporters have the option of being paid in yuan ex- the past three years, it’s far above Europe’s and will permit countries changeable for physical gold, those factors may well the United States’ 2 percent range. under sanctions by prove to be catalysts that pushes gold to $4,000-plus Furthermore, India’s S&P DSE SENSEX index the US (including Russia, Venezuela and Bitcoin levels. That would signal the beginning of the is up 19 percent and the rupee has gained nearly Iran) to trade in yuan, end of the US dollar as the world’s dominant reserve 6 percent this year. Thus, both stocks and cur- convertible to gold on currency. rency are outperforming most large economies. the Shanghai and Hong And Africa’s two biggest economies, Nigeria Kong exchanges. The death of the petrodollar will be the rebirth of gold. TJ and South Africa, emerged from recession in Shutterstock the second quarter. For China, despite its growing property bubble and government attempts to rein in runaway debt, economic growth topped expectations in the second quarter with GDP expanding 6.9 percent from the year earlier. And as China grew, so too have industrial metal prices, which signal further economic strength. Since late 2015, The Commodities Research Bureau’s Raw Industrial Index rallied more than 30 percent. And copper — referred to as Dr. Copper be- cause it’s reputed to have a Ph.D. in economics because of its ability to predict global-economy strength and weakness since it is used in most sectors of industry — while down several per- centage points in recent trading, was up nearly 60 percent from its low last year. From emerging markets to developed nations across the globe, while speculative real estate bubbles will deflate and some will bust, we do not signal excessive market instability at this time. Therefore, a global economy recovery is nega- tive for gold because it raises expectations for interest-rate increases. That in turn lifts the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets and boosts the dollar, in which gold is priced. Conversely, a lower US currency makes dollar- denominated gold cheaper for holders of other currencies, which boosts demand. Until there is a strong reversal in the downward trajectory of the dollar, gold prices will remain strong to stable regardless of global growth projections.

6 THE TRENDS JOURNAL | SUMMER 2017 Gerald Celente’s

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America’s shadow: Donald Trump Whining self-described “Progressives,” in denial for eight years, helped create Trump

By Derek Osenenko EXECUTIVE EDITOR There was no better-suited stage to reflect just how deep America’s collective smarts, dignity, self-pride and morality had sunk than Presidential Campaign 2016. United States elections, especially presidential elec- in life — our values, sense of wrong and right, and tions, once were a cherished tradition. They were expectations for what living a quality life means — by ripe with optimism that our next leaders would the leaders we nurture and ultimately empower. reflect in principle and practice the moral, freedom- John Adams famously said: “I pray Heaven to bestow loving tenets on which the country was founded. the best of blessing on this house (the White House) They increasingly served as a check on America’s and on all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but head, heart and soul. honest and wise men ever rule under this roof!” We are taught that we create the leaders we elect. The second president’s words are a sad reminder of We reflect ourselves in them. We grade our knowl- how distant and lost we’ve become from that ideal… edge about issues that affect us by the leaders we the ideal that leaders of courage, moral grounding choose. We set the bar for the important abstracts and intelligence would be compelled to the highest

8 THE TRENDS JOURNAL | SUMMER 2017 Illustration by Anthony Freda office by an endearing populace who not only -es The Spring 2015 edition of the Trends Journal poused those values but lived by them as well. screamed: “Liars, cowards, freaks and fools… Wel- We can spend thousands of words describing the come to the Presidential Reality Show®.” dynamics that have strayed us so far from our found- Written two months before Donald Trump en- ing fathers’ ideals, especially as they relate to leaders tered the race, we forecast: “Billions will be spent on we elect. But by any measure — from the state of our lies, deceptions, hollow slogans and gutless stances… collective mental, physical and spiritual health to our Americans will go to the polls to cast ballots for the evaporated role as the world’s moral, political and eco- lesser of two evils to lead the greatest nation of ‘ex- nomic leader — America’s decline reflects the leaders ceptionals’ to more economic ruin and endless war.” it keeps empowering and its willingness to disengage Indeed, as voters went to the polls on Nov. 8, 2016, from, instead of fight, the lunacy they bring us. candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton shared As American economist Mark Skousen once said, something: They had historically low approval rat- “We will never change our political leaders until we ings. In fact, a CNN exit poll on Election Day showed change the people who elect them.” Trump with a 64 percent untrustworthy rating and And what better stage to reflect America’s decline Clinton with 61 percent. than one of our most cherished institutions — a presidential election, when the leader who best mir- MINDLESS, BRAINWASHED, CLUELESS rors our values, desires and needs is throned. The Urban Dictionary describes reality TV as “… Programming which lacks any redeeming social, in- REALITY-SHOW REALITY tellectual or moral value but is nonetheless poignant Two months before master TV-reality star Don- in a macabre way due to the reflection it offers of a ald Trump entered the presidential race, global rapidly declining western culture. Primarily watched forecaster Gerald Celente identified — and even by mindless, brainwashed Americans who are long trademarked — the trend that was about to fully since bereft of any intelligent thought or recogniz- erupt. Celente’s Trends Research Institute coined able human values (greed and self-interest notwith- the phrase the Presidential Reality Show®, and wrote standing).” about it extensively, as a mirror image of what Amer- We described the Presidential Reality Show as “… ica had become. the Greatest Freak Show on Earth: the 2016 race for

SUMMER 2017 | THE TRENDS JOURNAL 9 divided states The Shadow is an unconscious component of our personalities that stores the ugly, dark stuff we can’t face in waking reality.

the White House, brought to you by those masters news cycle isn’t driven by actual news. of propaganda, the mainstream media… It’s a red- It’s driven by masked agendas and blatant biases. white-and-blue bonanza of inanity and insanity, featuring the blood-drenched “leaders” of the Repub- THOSE CORPORATE MEDIA JOHNS lican and Democratic Gangs: the political Crips and The six corporations that own, run and manipu- Bloods who steal our money in the name of “too big late 90 percent of the media landscape plaster the to fail,” tax breaks, loan guarantees, etc., and murder same predictable “expert” voices and party hacks in millions in the name of freedom and democracy” coverage. Those paid contributors repeat the same (Trends Monthly, December 2015). viewpoints designed to drive audience and advertis- And throughout election season last year, show- ing bottom-line preferences of corporate Johns and case episodes of the Presidential Reality Show® were puppeteers. on display for all the world to gauge just how far “Issues of life and death, geopolitical turmoil, social our political discourse has sunk. In a different, more unrest, the economic future of the nation, foreign thoughtful and morally grounded time in America’s policy, the never-ending War on Terror... are all being history, those game-show spectacles, passed off to debased to conform to imbecilic, sound-bite content the public as debates, never would have happened. that drives big bucks from advertisers for commer- The prize-fight-like promos, the flashy staging, the cials on the Presidential Reality Show®,” Celente said. lights, the forced drama… they weren’t debates. They The result? Much of America has stopped listening were “Beat the Clock,” TV game shows. Contestants to facts. This divided nation either mindlessly fol- had up to 90 seconds to answer each question, one lows the dictates of their political parties or simply minute for each follow-up response, and if a candi- fully disengages from dialogue or action that requires date went over their allotted time, a bell would go thinking for yourself. off. It not only sounds like a game show, it is a game Today, two-thirds of Americans are asking them- show. selves how the hell we elected Trump president. How did so many supposedly level-headed, moderate HOW WE GOT HERE voters in Rust Belt states and elsewhere place their How did America arrive at this place? How did a votes — and hopes for real, dynamic change — in the once-great nation decline in virtually every area — lap of Trump? our health, finances, art and culture, politics and self- Look in the mirror, America. dignity — that determines quality of life? For generations, and worsening over time, the pop- For nearly four decades, the Trends Research In- ulace followed ideologies and propaganda of their stitute has tracked trends based on facts. We forecast political party’s preferences and practices — all at the trends based not on pre-existing notions of what the expense of thinking for themselves. facts are, but on hard evidence, gathered and ana- Instead of speaking out forcefully and relentlessly lyzed over time, to determine with unmatched preci- against lying, deceptive leaders that take us to wars sion what comes next. that cost millions of lives and trillions of your dollars, And our Globalnomic® methodology demon- and whose policies have systematically eradicated the strated repeatedly, especially during the Obama middle class, either stay quiet or seek refuge in media years, how lying, deception and greed at the top con- that mirror their political preferences. taminated the very body and soul of a nation. Many search for a different, deeper understanding Our motto, “think for yourself,” has largely been of how we arrived at this state. Many especially won- lost in a culture force-fed corporatized news. Main- der what could turn us around. stream-media coverage has been predictably stuck in Presidential Reality Show® mode. From spewing an THE SHADOW KNOWS endless stream of anti-Russian propaganda, to chas- Perhaps in the deep recesses of what is known as ing down meaningless Trump tweets, to trumping depth psychology we find some answers, a larger up the Charlottesville rally of a small fringe of white context, for understanding America’s decline and the supremacists into a national racist moment, the rise of the Presidential Reality Show. 10 THE TRENDS JOURNAL | SUMMER 2017 divided states

The concept of the Shadow, created by the great ton signaled to the American populace ‘more of the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, provides insights into same.’ In contrast, Trump’s simple message — It’s an America struggling to think for itself. about the economy, stupid — resonated” (Trends In particular, for liberals, Trump has become their Journal, Fall 2017). Shadow. Now, eight months into Trump’s presidency, the The Shadow is an unconscious component of our nation is more divided than ever. And the so-called personalities that stores the ugly, dark stuff we can’t Left, smoldering in its state of shock, only rallies face in waking reality. As individuals, groups of peo- against narcissism, racism, sexism, Nazism and anti- ple, organizations, countries and, of course, political Semitism under a new party label, “The Resistance,” parties reject facing the ugly, hard truth staring them but remains anti-war silent. in the face long enough, the more powerful and de- Resistance is more denial. structive their Shadow becomes. “We cannot change anything until we accept it,” Eventually, you display your failure to accept the Jung said. “Condemnation does not liberate; it op- truth. You become uncharacteristically angry, emo- presses.” tional, illogical and uncentered. For eight years under Obama, liberals denied, Under President Barack Obama, liberal Democrats ignored and sat quiet while hypocrisy reigned over stood silent and numb for eight years. their party. They set the stage for a Trump-like figure, Where were they when, under Obama’s watch, 95 who used simple messaging and unorthodox tactics percent of wealth gained in the US went to the 1 per- not only to win, but send much of the country into a cent, and 51 percent of full-time workers earned less tailspin, seeking answers and unifying opposition. than $30,000 a year? Under the guise of exceptionalism, that holier- Where was the Left when anti-war fraud, Nobel than-thou mindset that feeds more denial and more Peace of crap prize-winner Obama bragged about his deposits into the Shadow’s unconscious, America 30,000 troop surge into Afghanistan? Silent when he and especially those who call themselves liberal cre- said “I’m really good at killing people,” referring to his ated the flipside of the Great American Dream. drone strikes that killed over 4,000 innocent people Or, as Celente put it, we’re “Living and Dying in and fueled Muslim hatred toward America. Where Dumfuckistan.” TJ were those peace-loving, anti-war mongers when Obama ordered bombing campaigns that continued to fuel Muslim hatred in seven countries? TRENDPOST What about stealing our rights through the Na- tional Security Agency and the famous Patriot Act, The Obama years ended with him vigorously campaigning for Hillary Clinton in her race against Donald Trump. No president in history cam- robbing us of our habeas corpus, that Obama signed paigned harder for his potential successor than Obama did, pleading with into law in 2011 on New Year’s Eve when no one was voters to support Clinton and, thus, endorse his legacy. paying attention? His campaigning capped off the stunning failure of war-hawk and Where was the Left? Hiding in the Shadow. What pseudo-liberal Clinton to generate enough enthusiasm to beat what the it has denied and repressed about itself, it now proj- polls say was the weakest presidential candidate in history. The result? ects on Trump, the Right and any other entity or What was left of the Left was annihilated. person reflecting a contradictory viewpoint. Liberals, Progressives and Leftists… these are antiquated, meaningless labels of what they once symbolized. With high voter disgust for Democrats, DENIAL, DENIAL, DENIAL as exemplified by not only by the presidential election, but massive election During the Obama years, liberals lost their morality, losses on federal and state House levels, and high distrust among the huge integrity, passion, purpose and drive. They rejected millennial generation who believe the nomination of their candidate, Bernie facts and realities before them, relegating them to Sanders, was stolen by Democratic Party leaders, the progressive movement storage bin of denials Jung called the Shadow. And and its so-called liberal media have no focus, energy, purpose or passion. when Obama’s tenure was over, the Shadow was The fish rots from the head down. And the Left, which professes “pro- gressive” values such as being anti-war, anti-big brother and anti-big cast across the country, especially among liberals and corporation but remained silent when Obama launched wars, expanded moderates. government surveillance, pushed for global trade and let Wall Street bank- The Trends Journal was the first magazine (Spring sters go free, helped build the stage for the coming of Trump. 2016 edition) to predict Trump would win and why. There’s a phrase in Jungian circles that the Left should heed… it’s time And when he did win, we wrote: they “eat their shadow.” “Handing the Obama legacy off to Hillary Clin-

SUMMER 2017 | THE TRENDS JOURNAL 11 DIVIDED STATES

Wikipedia President Trump has surrounded himself with military authority figures (from left): Marine Gen. John F. Kelly, who is the White House chief of staff; Marine Gen. James Mattis, who is secretary of defense; and Army Gen. H.R. McMaster, who is national security adviser. Trump presidency safe: He’s back in military school Generals in charge of the White House; Cadet Trump to follow orders

By Derek Osenenko EXECUTIVE EDITOR Cadet Donald Trump, at 13, found himself surrounded by military disciplinarians charged by his parents with controlling the young future president by bringing focus and structure to his life. He needed to learn how to play by the rules. And wrote a year ago in Trends Monthly, “an out of control what better place than an environment where rules little bastard who wouldn’t behave… a spoiled brat rule, right down to marching in line, making your you didn’t want around the house.” bed and even how you lift your fork to your mouth. Trump was yanked out of his cushy Jamaica Estates Back in those days, rowdy, uncontrollable kids, home, in Queens, NY, and scuttled upstate to dress whose parents had the cash, were banished to these in military drag, follow orders and be a good boy. once-thriving beacons of control and subordination. New York Military Academy, about 60 miles north HOW THINGS DON’T CHANGE. of Manhattan in the sleepy town of Cornwall, was At 71, Trump again finds himself surrounded by one of those foreboding places your parents would military disciplinarians charged by political forces threaten you with when you were, as Gerald Celente and dynamics with controlling him and bringing

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Wing’s day-to-day operations. Kelly, who oversaw the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba under the Obama administration, had, at the time, pushed for an expansion of the facility. It was revealed in late August that the Trump administration is beginning a $500 million expansion of the prison. • Secretary of Defense James Mattis, a retired Marine general who earned the nickname “Mad Dog” for his allegedly murderous reign in the Battle of Fallujah, Iraq, where he ordered Marines to fire at ambulances and aid workers and then cordoned off the city, preventing civilians from escaping and giving the green light for solders to shoot women wearing head scarves. It was reported he even had Marines pose for trophy photos with the scores of innocent victims they killed. As he was exiting Iraq, Mattis was memorably quoted as saying, “It’s quite fun to shoot them, you know. It’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people.” • National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster, an active Army general who played a critical role in convincing Trump to increase troop presence in some focus and structure to the White House… in Afghanistan. He replaced Trump’s first choice, Mi- short, to make sure he follows orders. chael Flynn, a retired Army general forced to resign Today, the president is flanked by hand-picked over allegations he illegally received payments from pillars of discipline — and “experts” in the fields of foreign governments. McMaster, who intends to stay death and destruction, including: on active military duty as national security adviser, • Chief of Staff John Kelly, a decorated four-star is a veteran of the Gulf War and Operation Endur- Marine general, who was yanked from his position ing Freedom and made a name criticizing George W. as homeland security director to manage the West Bush’s strategy in Iraq.

Eisenhower’s nightmare is now a reality On Jan. 17, 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower, a five-star general who led the D-Day invasion, gave a powerful warning to the nation in his farewell address: “In the councils of government, we must Although Dwight D. guard against the acquisition of unwarranted Eisenhower served as a general in the influence, whether sought or unsought, by the Army before becoming military-industrial complex. The potential for president (he's shown the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, in uniform in 1945), he was wary of the and will persist.” influence of the military Today, the White House has converged with on the country. the military-industrial complex to an extent Wikipedia and depth beyond what Eisenhower could have imagined. In policy, practice and operations, Washington is now run by military elites. — Gerald Celente

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Why bother with the complexities of life-or-death scenarios when the “experienced” and “educated” generals and ex-generals below him can make those decisions? When Trump made his primetime announcement in August that he was reversing his long-held prom- ise to “get the hell out of Afghanistan,” America’s lon- gest war, he said the US was not aggressive enough in managing the war under President Obama and that “only the judgment and expertise of wartime com- manders” could bring victory. That assertion made it crystal clear that the Penta- gon — not the president, not Congress and certainly not the American people — is dictating all military decisions. Making it further clear how entrenched the mili- tary is in the White House, Trump offered no details Donald Trump has The military is alive and well, and at the helm, in about troop expansion in Afghanistan. Not a word embraced the military the White House. about troop size, cost, strategy or timelines. mindset he learned at “We will not announce our plans for further the New York Military Academy. CADET TRUMP, PRESIDENT TRUMP military activities,” said the president, who increas- Shutterstock As accounts from Trump’s former fellow military- ingly makes public speeches surrounded by military academy students confirm, the president at first personnel in camouflage. “Micromanagement from defied military discipline. He later embraced the mil- Washington, D.C., does not win battles.” itary mindset, especially as he rose through the ranks Even on the campaign trail, Trump promised, and became captain of one of the school’s prestigious “We’re going to build our military bigger, better, companies. stronger than ever before. Nobody is going to mess Although he successfully dodged the Vietnam War with us — that I can tell you.” draft, a study of Trump’s academy years reflects an Indeed, when he proposed his first federal budget evolving comfort with, and trust of, military proto- this spring, he called for one of the largest defense- cols and procedures. Like many defiant kids sent to spending increases in recent history. military school, the doctrines and training worked When he defends his decision to lift all restraints for Trump. on generals in the field, empowering them to make Looking back, Trump never left military school. life-and-death decisions on the front lines, it’s be- “I did very well under the military system,” Trump cause his “very talented” generals have the experi- said in an interview. He trusts military judgment. ence to make the right calls. And having those generals in charge, keeping cadet Trump in line and disciplined, comforts not only his TRENDPOST political allies, but even The New York Times. Its edi- torial board (Aug. 20) applauded Trump’s decision to Some unease hit the markets during the string of resignations that shook surround himself with military elites: the White House. The Dow Jones, for example, dropped in mid-August “Americans accustomed constitutionally and po- to its lowest performance in three months, when Trump’s handling of the litically to civilian leadership now find themselves Charlottesville protests led to rumors that National Economic Council relying on three current and former generals… to Director Gary Cohn was next to resign. Some talking heads on the CNBCs stop Mr. Trump from going completely off the rails. of the world went so far as to proclaim that a Cohn resignation would Experienced and educated, well-versed in the ter- prompt a severe market crash. It’s not about Cohn or any other high-ranking official walking out on rible costs of global confrontation and driven by Trump. The markets want stability, a President Trump who will stay in an impulse toward public service that Mr. Trump line, behave and follow rules. The markets got that with Kelly overseeing doesn’t possess, these three, it is hoped, can counter White House operations — and taking action when instability threatens. his worst instincts.” The markets will remain comforted that the generals are in charge. The generals revered by Trump may keep him under control just like his military-school teachers,

14 THE TRENDS JOURNAL | SUMMER 2017 divided states Why bother with the complexities of life-or-death scenarios when the “experienced” and “educated” generals and ex-generals below him can make those decisions? but they do not have a single victory to show for gen- expansion of the war in Afghanistan, Bannon can erations of destructive warfare and one failed policy no longer be an obstacle to the militarization of the after another. White House. And after Bannon’s departure, Trump’s Experienced? Educated? deputy assistant and Bannon ally, Sebastian Gorka, Experienced? At what? Killing millions? Costing parted ways with the White House as well, leaving trillions? They haven’t won a war since World War II. virtually no nationalist remnants closely advising the Educated? In what and by whom? Brainwashed in president that highly appeal to the populist move- military dogma and doctrine? ment that elected him. And what about the rest of society? Our education Finally, in another example of how a military doesn’t matter? Our degrees are worthless? Our life mindset is taking over the White House, news experiences add up to nothing? broke late in August that Trump is reinstating a Yes, according to The New York Times, a cham- government program that provides military surplus pion of all of America’s wars. equipment, such as grenade launchers and other high-powered weapons, to local police departments NATIONALISTS ARE ALL BUT GONE across the nation. Further bolstering the military’s hold on the White The program was somewhat diminished under the President Trump embraces the military House was the Aug. 18 departure of Trump’s chief Obama administration in light of several high-profile pagentry of the office. strategist, Steve Bannon. Labeled as a nationalist police shootings that drew attention to just how White House Photo opposed to foreign entanglements, including any militarized local police departments had become. TJ by Shealah Craighead

SUMMER 2017 | THE TRENDS JOURNAL 15 I didn’t. Trump and I are the same age. But there are many differences. I was born in the Bronx, off Boston Post Road, right near the White Castle, not far from the Bronx Zoo, Arthur Avenue and a short trip to Orchard Beach. Donald Trump was raised in one of those uptight, better-than-thou WASP Jamaica Estates neighbor- hoods in Queens – an Episcopalian/Presbyterian/ Methodist enclave of whiter-than-white. Anyway, back to military school and Donald Trump. That’s where Trump and I parted company. I was raised to be a man. Donald Trump was raised a spoiled brat… and by his words and deeds, he still is… he never grew up. The facts prove it.

DIFFERENT CULTURES Born at Parkchester Hospital in the Bronx, I was brought home to 2940 Hone Ave. There were seven of us living in a two-story walk-up: My dear parents, Louis and Marie, may their souls rest in peace, and five children, two girls and three boys. There was one room for the boys, one room for the girls, my par- ents’ bedroom and a nice living room and kitchen. Donald John Trump's The blessed memories I have. My mom in the picture in the 1964 kitchen, cooking away, listening to her favorite radio New York Military Trump flump: Academy yearbook. show, “Make Believe Ballroom.” Wikipedia Sitting in my high chair, I got to hear the greats: A military- Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Julius La Rosa, Artie Shaw, The Mills Brothers, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Louie Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzger- school brat ald, Count Basie, The Dorsey Brothers, Louie Prima, The Andrews Sisters, Jo Stafford, Duke Ellington, When you’re Dinah Shore, Rosemary Clooney… the list goes on uncontrollable and and on; it’s endless. It is still in my mind at instant recall: “It’s Make rowdy, hard discipline Believe Ballroom time, put all your cares away, all the is the answer bands are here to bring good cheer your way… your dial is set for fun.” By Gerald Celente Over on the Jamaica Estates, Queens, side of New PUBLISHER York City, Trump grew up in a tight-white enclave Why did Donald Trump go to military school? He without an ounce of boogie, not a drop of jive. And was a spoiled little brat. Back in the day, the greatest by his style, dress and bleach-blond comb-over, he punishment a parent could threaten an out-of-con- still shows it. trol little bastard who wouldn’t behave was military As I was saying, Trump was (and by his current school. behavior, still is) uncontrollable. He went to military I know firsthand. school. I didn’t. But I almost did. I was threatened by my parents… many times. “You little bastards! I had enough! I warned you But I was smarter than Donald Trump. over and over that if you didn’t behave, you were Trump went to military school. going to military school. You promised to behave 16 THE TRENDS JOURNAL | SUMMER 2017 divided states and didn’t,” my father screamed at my two brothers tion, obeyed orders, marched off to pseudo-military and me one memorable Sunday afternoon. orders and, dressed in a costume, devoured mess-hall Out of the blue, in a split instant, we were dressed mess. and marched off to the car. “Where we going?” my oldest brother asked. I was NO MAN’S MAN the youngest of five. Donald Trump never grew up. By his words and “You’ll find out!” my father said, with an “I had deeds, he is the same narcissistic boy who still de- enough” look. stroys the beauty of life he was blessed with to feed It was no longer a threat. Suddenly, it was reality. his obese ego. As we had forecast in the summer edition of SCARED SHITLESS the Trends Journal… before Trump went on “self- I tell the story of what happened when we reached destruct,” the race to the White House was his to the massive iron gates of the military school in my win or lose. We wrote, “While Clinton and Trump book, “What Zizi Gave Honeyboy: A True Story swap leads in a season of volatile polls, we maintain about Love, Wisdom, and the Soul of America” (Wm. our forecast that absent a wild-card event or his self- Morrow, 2002). The book has been made into a imposed destruction, Trump, a proven reality-show movie starring Doris Roberts of “Everybody Loves champion, will win the White House.” Raymond” fame as my Aunt Zizi. And now, stuck on automatic “self-destruction” Unlike Donald Trump, who was either too stupid pilot, Donald Trump, just as he would rather be sent or just too out of his mind and was banished to mili- to military-school hell rather than obey his parents, tary school, my brothers and I were much smarter according to numerous reports, refuses to listen to than “The Donald.” The choice was simple: Be- his political handlers. have. Or keep driving our parents nuts and be sent Indeed, running a political campaign is not rocket away to military school. science. I know the scene firsthand. Out of graduate Eat in a mess hall? Not be around girls? The school, I was campaign coordinator for a candidate thought of giving up the finest, most delicious, lov- who would become mayor of Yonkers, New York; I ingly prepared Italian food that God created? For was assistant to the secretary of the New York State military school? Not even a question. Senate; and I designed and instructed American And oh, how I loved it when those Irish little lass- Politics and Campaign Technology at St. John’s Uni- ies’ eyes were smiling at me in religious instruction. versity. Running campaigns is simple. You write the Give all that up for military school? Doing drills? script and follow it. When it needs to be changed, Following orders? Marching in step and sleeping in you change it. bunk beds with a load of guys? Not a chance. And, most importantly, at all times you stick to the Imagine being a teenage Trump: While Donald script, as did candidate Barack Obama, who conned was following orders, I was working as a soda jerk his way into the White House with his “Hope and at Urich’s Candy and Stationery Store, where all the Change You Can Believe In” lines delivered with kids used to stop in after school for cherry Cokes, egg TelePrompTer precision. And despite not living up to creams and hot fudge sundaes. most of what he promised, as Obama’s poll numbers Not taking my girlfriend to the drive-in movies or prove, a majority of Americans still believe in the tooling around in my MG Midget because the only Hope and Change he never delivered. place my big ego could live was military school? No Donald Trump has professionals advising him. way. But just as he could not obey But for a spolied boy who his parents when he was a boy, thought Chef Boy-Ar-Dee was despite promising to behave, macaroni, still wolfs down KFC The Donald, while promising to and loves Big Macs washed down stick to the script agreed upon with Diet Coke, Trump slumped by his hired hands, incapable Gerald Celente at age himself off to military-school of controlling his outsized 14 on Easter Sunday incarceration. Instead of dreams ego, has not matured from the with his dad, Louis, who is holding a hefty loaf of love, dancing with the darlings mindset that forced his parents of Italian bread for the and eating heavenly tastes each to sentence him to punishment family's Easter feast. and every day, he stood at atten- prison… military school. TJ Celente family photo SUMMER 2017 | THE TRENDS JOURNAL 17 TRUST IN NEWS?

Pure propaganda American presstitute media have a tale to tell, and the public is buying it: Hate Russia!

By Gerald Celente, PUBLISHER and Derek Osenenko, EXECUTIVE EDITOR

ussia did it! Russia invaded a US ally, Ukraine, and occupied the eastern reaches of the country. It hacked our elections. It broke into Democratic National Committee servers to steal thousands of emails detrimental to candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign. It has the Rundying support of US President Donald Trump because it has secretly brokered billion-dollar deals with the former real estate mogul and his family. Indeed, anti-Russia sentiment is at Cold War highs. and click-through and social-media metrics, and Never mind that for each talking point promoted by with laser-like focus on the one or two stories the mainstream media driving this mindset, there is that will drive those numbers, have become mas- no hard evidence, only speculation and assumptions, ters of fostering anti-Russian propaganda. They to support each claim. Contradictory facts, easily at- do it at the expense of facts, real reporting and a tained by anyone interested in the truth, are ignored public’s right to make measured assessments of and never reported. news and information shoved down its throat. While Americans have long been programmed to The dictionary defines propaganda as “in- maintain a high level of distrust toward Russia — formation, especially of a biased or misleading especially among boomers who grew up with Cold nature, used to promote or publicize a par- War fears of the imminent nuclear threat the Rus- ticular cause or point of view.” sian Empire posed — the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse Most of the mainstream US media’s perva- temporarily cooled those fears. sive, habitually dishonest, nonstop coverage But tensions between the two nations began to de- of Russia’s alleged collusion with the Trump teriorate under President Bill Clinton and continued campaign to interfere with the 2016 election during George W. Bush’s and Barack Obama’s presi- has turned propaganda into a powerful sci- dencies. And, beginning with the presidential cam- ence. paign in 2016 and worsening since Trump’s election, Anti-Russia headlines, sound bites and anti-Russia hysteria is now ingrained in the American social media rants — driven by media psyche. It’s being effectively manufactured, pack- blitzes that inflate every nuisance into a aged, marketed and sold by politicians and corporate major headline and story to dominate 24- presstitutes who are, as global forecaster Gerald hour news cycles — permeate politics on Celente states, “repulsive, repressive and immoral.” both sides of the aisle and are swallowed by the general public. HYSTERICAL. RELENTLESS. FALSE. OBSESSIVE. Information fragments, whether sound bites on In a few short months, America’s watered-down, broadcast news or Twitter firestorms between news corporatized media, driven exclusively by TV ratings sources and media, now pass as legitimate journalism.

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Shutterstock

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Of course the presstitute media promote the anti-Russia narrative. It boosts ratings — and the networks make money. MSNBC

The masses are headline-strong and knowledge- JOURNALISTIC ETHICS? empty. An especially stunning characteristic of anti-Russia propaganda’s rise in America is how the Fourth Es- ANTI-RUSSIA PROPAGANDA GOOD FOR BUSINESS tate has all but abandoned basic journalistic tenets to The New York Times and Washington Post lead drive home the “Russia Did It” narrative. the propaganda circus. They inflate every unsub- In Russia/Trump coverage, the media elites have stantiated “leak” from unnamed sources into major abandoned qualifiers such as “allegedly,” “reportedly,” “breaking news” and then send their mouthpieces to “according to” and “unsubstantiated.” And, also con- their cable and network news partners to talk up the trary to basic journalistic standards, whether in print “news.” or on the air, Russia coverage routinely lacks basic It’s not news. It’s the Presidential Reality Show®. balance. They stack the coverage deck with sources And it’s working. and on-air personalities who support the overriding Ratings for many of the mainstream media news Hate Russia narrative, while ignoring or dismissing channels, that play to their particular audience’s po- the other side of the story. litical preferences, have spiked. For example, ratings In headline after headline and story after story, the for MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow, who so-called pillars of American journalism report unat- appeals to diehard Democrats, and conservative Fox tributed claims as facts. They rely almost exclusively News host Sean Hannity, are up substantially. on government mouthpieces with personal agendas And digital subscriptions for The Washington and unnamed sources. The lies and unsubstantiated Post, recently acquired by multi-billionaire Jeff information are then repeated in other stories by Bezos, and The New York Times also have sharply other so-called journalists and across multiple plat- increased during and after the presidential cam- forms. paign by ratcheting up their anti-Russia and anti- That Russia hacked the Democratic National Com- Trump coverage. They continue to inflate and mittee and cost Clinton the election is no longer an distort Trump’s alleged ties to President Vladimir open-ended question. It’s a presstitute fact. Putin, which is also fostering a widening political Earlier this year, the world was struck by one of the divide in the nation. greatest hacks of the Internet Age. It spread to nearly

That Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee and cost Clinton the election is no longer an open-ended question. It’s a presstitute fact.

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80 countries. Here’s how The New tute media’s constantly repeated claim York Times explained how hackers that “all 17 US intelligence agencies pulled it off by exploiting US National have agreed that Russia tried to influ- Security Agency software: ence the 2016 election to benefit Don- “Security experts described the at- ald Trump.” tacks as the digital equivalent of a per- In fact, it was only a hand-picked fect storm. They began with a simple group of analysts from four agencies, phishing email, like the one Russian not “all 17.” But despite these facts, hackers used in the attacks on the ignored by the media and their select Democratic National Committee and mouthpieces, the falsehood was re- other targets last year.” (The New York peated in dozens of stories over two Times, 12 May 2017.) Ratings for both months before The New York Times, MSNBC’s left-wing So, The New York Times is abso- Rachel Maddow and The Associated Press and others finally lutely certain the Russians hacked Fox News’ conservative corrected it. the Democratic National Committee Sean Hannity are up By the time this correction was made substantially. and other targets? What proof has it — buried and quickly forgotten — the Above: MSNBC; shown? What targets is it referring to? Below: Wikipedia misinformation was written into the There is no hard evidence. Despite anti-Russia narrative. relentless claims of so-called experts, political hacks and US government SECRET FBI OPERATION agencies that Russia hacked the DNC COULDN’T PRODUCE PROOF and released the emails through Not even FBI- and Homeland Secu- WikiLeaks, which denied receiving rity Department-led surveillance of so- them from Russian sources — there is cial-media sites and Russia-supported no definitive proof. news outlets secretly conducted on Election Day could provide evidence F**K THE FACTS that Russia was intervening with the And there’s no evidence, none, that US election. Trump and his campaign colluded Don’t remember that story? with Russia to interfere with the presidential elec- It took eight months to break into the news and tion. was barely reported even then. FBI agents, under Even the government’s Jan. 6 intelligence report Obama’s watch, investigated potential Russian in- on Russian hacking provided no proof that Russia terference in US elections, but found nothing. This orchestrated any attacks on US elections. And de- was big news. But it was barely reported and quickly spite the absence of hard evidence presented in that forgotten. report, in the last press conference of his presidency, Obama described the conclusions of the intelligence community as “not conclusive.” CNN’s duplicitous Instead of proof, included in that report is a con- jecture-filled, subjective and inconsequential seven- double standard page accounting of how Russia’s TV network, RT, On Sept. 2, CNN reported: “No evidence Trump Tower was wiretapped.” attempted to negatively sway viewers’ opinions of The CNN on-air presstitute gleefully announced: “The Justice Depart- Clinton with biased coverage. (Note: Gerald Celente ment is revealing it has found no evidence, zero evidence, that Trump is a frequent guest on RT programs and says what he Tower was ever wiretapped as the president has alleged in a series of wants and has never been censored.) tweets.” Despite the sustained absence of evidence or proof, No evidence? Zero evidence? a narrative continues through the mainstream media When it’s to the mainstream media’s benefit to ridicule Trump’s allega- insisting Clinton lost because Russia, and RT, wanted tions as having no evidence, they emphasize the word “evidence.” But they to “undermine our democracy” and that Putin has continue to perpetuate the allegation that the Russian government hacked a “personal beef” with her because she said the 2011 Democratic National Committee emails with “NO EVIDENCE,” “ZERO Russian parliamentary elections were rigged. EVIDENCE!” Adding fuel to the propaganda fire was the pressti-

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Also quickly in and out of the news was the bogus CNN story that Congress was investigating ties between a Russian investment fund and Trump sup- porter Anthony Scaramucci. Three reporters were forced to resign over the false story. More telling was a video clip of CNN producer John Bonifield calling CNN’s coverage of the Russian hacking story “mostly bullshit,” ordered by CEO Jeff Zucker. Bonifield made his admission while secretly being filmed. “It’s mostly bullshit right now. Like, we don’t have any big giant proof,” he said while being re- corded by activist James O’Keefe. “So why is CNN constantly like, ‘Russia this, Rus- Shutterstock sia that?’” O’Keefe asked him… “Because it’s ratings… Russian soldiers in Perevaine, Crimea, Ukraine in March 2014. Our ratings are incredible right now.” Exactly the point we have been making throughout it deserved wide breaking-news coverage. It demon- this analysis — it’s all about ratings. It’s about the cor- strated how CNN is selling lies to drive ratings and porate media boosting their bottom line. ignoring or burying news that challenges the anti- Again, this story was barely reported, even though Russia, Trump-loves-Putin narrative dominant in mainstream media coverage.

CRYBABY CLINTON And now, nearly a year after the election, CNN continues to sell the lies and false narrative as evi- denced by its Top Story coverage of Hillary Clinton’s forthcoming book, “What Happened.” Under a large photo of a frowning Clinton, CNN’s headline link read, “CNN bought Clinton’s new memoir and read it overnight.” Among the other links, which included a Clinton photo gallery containing 43 images, was an analysis piece with the headline: “She was right about why she lost.” In the main story, CNN quoted from Clinton’s book: “There’s nothing I was looking forward to more than showing Putin that his efforts to influence our election and install a friendly puppet had failed… I know he must be enjoying everything that’s hap- pened instead. But he hasn’t had the last laugh yet. “I never imagined that he would have the audac- ity to launch a massive covert attack against our own democracy, right under our noses — and that he’d get away with it.” Clinton continues to lie, and CNN swears to it.

NO, RUSSIA DID NOT INVADE CRIMEA Another of the media’s greatest lies and greatest hits is Russia’s invasion and takeover of Crimea in Eastern Ukraine. In the print-news world, “nut graphs” are state-

22 THE TRENDS JOURNAL | SUMMER 2017 trust in news? ments of fact that explain a story’s news value and provide historical context. And in mainstream media in print and on the air, a familiar nut graph is re- peated over and over… Russia invaded Crimea in the winter of 2014, and annexed it. Russia did not attack Crimea. And it would likely still be a part of Ukraine if the US had not orches- trated a coup to overthrow the government of the democratically elected president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych. No, Russia did not invade Crimea. The Russian military already had a presence there. Under a lease agreement (which doesn’t expire until 2047), negoti- ated when Russia granted independence to Ukraine, its Black Sea Fleet is based at Sevastopol port in Crimea. However, Vladimir Putin did order more troops into Crimea as he feared the government takeover in Kiev would provoke an attack. losing maneuver. The sanctions are targeting and Anti-Russia sentiment It was Crimeans who voted overwhelmingly — punishing Russia for intervening in Syria. But Rus- may be highest in the halls of government. by 95 percent — to rejoin Russia. sia only intervened in Syria in 2015 at the legal re- Shutterstock Crimea had been part of Ukraine only since 1954, quest of the Assad government. By that time, more when then-Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, a than 400,000 Syrians were [already] dead.” Ukrainian, designated it as such. In fact, Crimea The overwhelming votes in favor of sanctions had been part of Russia longer than the United made the law veto-proof. Trump had no choice but States has been a country. to sign it.

POLITICIANS SEIZE ON EVIL RUSSIA LIES SHOULD MATTER, RIGHT? But the false narrative that Russia seized a sover- In August, for example, while appearing on CNN, eign nation resonates. Russia, in the minds of most US Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said, Americans and many US European allies, has re- “There is no minimizing or under-estimating the at- emerged as an evil, direct threat bearing down on the tack” on US elections. Western World’s peace and tranquility. “It was purposeful and relentless, and it involved The Russians are not to be trusted. Every policy, propaganda and hacking into our voting machines, protocol, action and geopolitical decision must begin or at least an attempt to do it, and potential collu- from this premise. To distrust Russia at every turn sion by the Trump campaign and then obstruction of is now the American way. It’s a given, an automatic justice.” response. That’s a lie. And as Celente said: “Blumenthal is an Don’t believe that? Just ask your senator or con- arrogant, vicious, malicious liar, a political low life…” gressman. Anti-Russia sentiment reigns highest in Moreover, Blumenthal’s lie, one repeated by nu- the halls of government. merous politicians, went unchallenged by a numbed, To make it perfectly clear to Vladimir Putin and corporatized, gutless media that sells its own propa- the Moscow elites that they were being punished ganda as truth. for “hacking” the election, the US House of Rep- resentatives voted in favor of a new round of THE PROPAGANDA IS WORKING sanctions against Russia by 419-3. The US Senate Later this fall, the Chicago Council on Global overwhelmingly voted 98-2 in favor of the sanc- Affairs will release a study gauging public opinion tions. toward Russia — where it stands today and compari- Congress also pushed for the new and expanded sons to previous eras. sanctions under the guise it was punishing the coun- Council Senior Fellow Dina Smeltz said Americans try for supporting the government in Syria’s civil war. today have the greatest distrust of Russia recorded in Celente said: “The sanctions legislation is another the 43 years the council has studied public opinion SUMMER 2017 | THE TRENDS JOURNAL 23 trust in news?

® Influenced by the on America-Russia relations. HISTORY BEFORE IT HAPPENS media’s non-stop Smeltz said the council’s final report would likely Tracking trends is a study of where we are, how we Russian-hacking narrative, two-thirds indicate that about 60 percent of Americans believe got here and where we are going. of Americans have an America should scale back relations with Russia. While the “Hate Russia” trend has intensified, it unfavorable view of Gallup also supports this trend. In its polls, current is not new. The Trends Research Institute has been Russia and believe its tracking shows two-thirds of Americans have an closely tracking this trend and warning of its poten- operatives covertly influenced the 2016 unfavorable view of Russia, matching ratings of the tial consequences for years. presidential election. immediate post-Cold War era. We demonstrated how anti-Russian actions by the Shutterstock The “Russia Did It” propaganda blitz is working. US violated agreements made at the time of the So- The public — unaccustomed to thinking for itself viet Union’s breakup (see the “Celente, Roberts, or doing its own fact-checking, and squeezed by the Null” video at Trendsresearch.com/conference-news media’s non-stop Russian-hacking narrative and for analysis by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former Congress’ rare show of bipartisan agreement that assistant treasury secretary under President Ronald Russian is evil, can’t be trusted and must be punished Reagan) had set a foundation for escalating tensions. — agrees Russia is our enemy. And in 2013, we identified how a new chapter in EDITOR’S NOTE: When citizens challenge the “official” the anti-Russia saga was emerging. word of government, they are dismissed as conspiracy During the Obama administration, for example, theorists. Throughout this Trends Journal, we have we identified the latest escalation of the US-created provided ample evidence of outright lies and non-stop anti-Russia propaganda campaign that was the pre- propaganda. cursor to the current campaign. That so many accept “allegations” and “suspects” dic- In the Spring 2014 Trends Journal, Celente wrote: tated by authorities as truth, is a reflection of the State of “Not willing to let an atrocity go to waste, on 29 De- the Union. cember 2013, following a terrorist bombing in a train Remember the motto of the Trends Journal: Think station in Volgograd, a Russian city several hundred for yourself. miles from where the Sochi 2014 Olympics were to be

24 THE TRENDS JOURNAL | SUMMER 2017 trust in news? hosted, headlines across America blared: ‘Terror At- poll showed that 57 percent of Americans believed tacks Hit Russia Leading Into 2014 Winter Olympics.’ terror would strike during the Sochi Games. “Week after week, leading up to the February TV ratings in the US fell 12 percent from those for games, government officials, ‘credible sources’ and the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, four years earlier. ‘intelligence experts’ warned Americans that travel- And a Gallup poll in early February 2014 showed 60 ing to Sochi was risky. From toothpaste bombs and percent of Americans viewed Russia unfavorably, shoe bombs to black-widow bombers, the message the most since 1994, while 63 percent viewed Putin was clear.” unfavorably. And, as we tracked and analyzed, much of the PROPAGANDA WORKED THEN, WORKS NOW Western world was ideally positioned, even pre-pro- Of course, not one of those dire predictions came grammed, to blame Russia for the crisis in Ukraine to fruition. that erupted later that year — even though, as the But the propaganda strategy worked. Just days be- facts substantiated, it was initiated by the US and its fore the opening ceremony, a 5 February 2014 CNN NATO allies. TJ

TRENDPOST TRENDPOST The Trends Research Institute was correct in 2013 The language of lies is often cloaked by words and and 2014. We stated the West, and especially the phrases that appear conclusive but are merely spec- US, had targeted Russia with propaganda cam- ulative and opinionated. paigns long before the crisis with Ukraine. We For example, the US remains engaged in the cautioned then that the US was stoking a war that longest war in its history in Afghanistan with no couldn’t be won. end in sight. Just two days after 9/11, an American Today, we intensify and expand that caution. population, dumbstruck with fear, swallowed the With media, political and public anti-Russia unsupported allegation, despite his denial and the sentiment at a generational high point, and with absence of any evidence, that Osama bin Laden was Trump surrounded by generals he trusts to make responsible for the terror strikes that brought down independent decisions about military policy and the Twin Towers in New York and rammed through action, a dangerous trend is maturing and intensi- the Pentagon. fying. Without providing any proof, then or now, While the Western Hemisphere never fully shook America believed Secretary of State Colin Powell its Cold War perception of Russia as evil and Ameri- and President George W. Bush when they fingered ca’s permanent, untrustworthy arch enemy, the cur- bin Laden as a prime “suspect.” rent “Hate Russia” hysteria is especially potent. A “suspect” is defined as someone “believed to be Our forecast of 2014 is even more relevant today: guilty, false, counterfeit, undesirable, defective, bad, “The facts are in front of you; the world is on the etc., with little or no proof.” path to war. The propaganda machines are doing Here we are 16 years later, and liars Powell and their jobs. Hate has filled the air. If the trends are Bush, who promised they would provide proof that not reversed, the next smoking gun may, indeed, be the bin Laden gang was responsible for 9/11, still a mushroom cloud. have not provided any evidence and neither the “It was as clear as day. You could see it coming.” American media nor public have demanded it. THEN AND NOW Again, facts don’t count, only propaganda. Today, nearly a year after the 2016 election, “17” genius intelligence agencies have provided no proof the Russians hacked the 2016 elections. But yet Rus- sia, the “suspect,” is widely reported and accepted as being the hacker.

SUMMER 2017 | THE TRENDS JOURNAL 25 “I listened to the news all day yesterday ... what a bunch of shit. They must think we’re all morons.”

Zizi’s right! It’s not fake news, it’s shit news Now more than ever, the world needs the wisdom of Zizi. Gerald Celente’s Read the book.

HISTORY BEFORE IT HAPPENS Order it at Trendsresearch. com/books/

From the Publisher… The State of the Union The Dysfunctional State of America Not a drop of boogie The current State of the Union has degenerated as high Not an ounce of jive artistic, cultural and societal values have been replaced with the war, fear and terror mindset that currently From Café Society chic prevails. To fast-food fat It ain’t got that swing Look in the mirror, America. Look at who you are. Look Lost its rock at what you used to be and what you have become. Motown is No Town

I do not write this in anger or malice. I am a true One-note rap American. I am who I am and achieved much of what High-tech tight I have because I was born in the Bronx, USA, as a free Hoodies athleisure American spirit to become who I wanted to be and to Corporate style think for myself.A cultural freedom that is Made in Elegance is history America. Gone is grace

While I am well aware of atrocities committed by our We’re No. 1 politicians since the genocide of the native population Most opioid-addicted and murderous civil and foreign wars, I love America for Most obese what our Constitution and Declaration of Independence Pigs can’t fly? represent. Yes, they can Our leaders’ violations of the core principles that Go to any airport founded this country do not invalidate those tenets,but Self-esteem? compel me to fight even harder for them. A foreign word As for the constant state of war for which there is virtual "Exceptional" arrogance silence and “support our troops” celebrations, I honor Monumental failures those generals, such as Washington and Eisenhower, Keeps starting wars who condemned foreign entanglements and the military Can't even win one industrial complex. They rob their people And in contrast to the low moral character of to bail out the BIGS Democrats and Republicans who wage constant wars From the local level to that murder millions and cost trillions… and all their Washington Heights avid supporters who vote them into office… I put my Liars, Cowards, Freaks heart, mind and soul into fighting to preserve my and Fools country’s core values. Democrats and Republicans And I put my money where my heart, mind and soul Kill millions and steal trillions reside. Bloods and Crips Different name, same game From launching Occupy Peace (www.OccupyPeace. us) to lovingly preserving richly historic buildings in Murderers and thieves Colonial Kingston, NY, that have stood since the birth A corporate/political ofour country, I consider myself a true patriot. plantation

I ask all of you who wish to stop the endless march to A nation of slaves. war to contribute to Occupy Peace, and to help reverse Don't Forget to Vote the current State of the Union. Gerald Celente Vote 4 Mr. Boogie CASHLESS SOCIETY

Shutterstock Cryptocurrencies: Flying high or fading fast?

EDITORS NOTE: As we go to press, cryptocurreny markets are in another stage of extreme volatility following China’s decision to shut down local exchanges. Despite erratic swings, whether in stocks, housing or cryptos, when values rapidly rise, there are always sharp market corrections. We maintain our forecast that cryptocurencies are a long term trend, not a fad and encourage you to tune in to Trends in the News each weekday night for updates.

By Derek Osenenko EXECUTIVE EDITOR Beginning in July, following a volatile stretch in cryptocurrency markets, prominent business analysts were nearly guaranteeing an imminent implosion of digital currencies. Why? As billionaire investor Howard Marks force- ticipated bubble crash is a Globalnomic® perspective. fully proclaimed, because “They are not real.” It reaches well beyond the United States. There is a In September, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon worldwide movement to eliminate cash, creating a further ratcheted up the anti-cryptocurrency hys- wide-open market gap for digital currencies” (Trends teria saying “Bitcoin is not a real thing and it’s solely Monthly, July 2017). speculative… and that there’s no need for it in the US. It will blow up.” Bitcoin took an immediate hit of WHAT MAKES FOR INTRINSIC VALUE? nearly 10 percent of its value and, as we go to press, When Marks, Dimon and others criticize crypto- had lost over 20 percent of its year-over-year value. currencies for their lack of intrinsic value compared While Marks, Dimon and others compared digital to other currencies, what fiat currencies are they currencies to pyramid schemes for their lack of “in- referring to? trinsic value” and were calling for the bubble to burst, The US dollar, which the Federal Reserve prints on the Trends Research Institute forecast: an as-needed, on-demand basis? “… Missing from all the analytic fervor over the an- Maybe they’re referring to the Chinese yuan,

SUMMER 2017 | THE TRENDS JOURNAL 31 cashless society

Cryptocurrency is not real? Ask the people of Vene- zuela, facing one of the worst financial crises in their history, with hyper-inflation crushing the bolivar, why they are deep into Bitcoin mining. Or maybe banksters, such as JPMorgan Chase's Dimon, are anti-crypto because as Max Keiser noted, “ Bitcoin makes banks, essentially price gouging intermediaries and socially unacceptable leeches, ob- solete. Bankers rightfully fear for their jobs as bitcoin replaces them. ”

THE GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE Our ongoing analysis and tracking of our “No More Cash” trend, one of our Top Ten for 2017, forecasts “a global sprint toward digital currency is unfolding and turning into a mad dash.” That’s exactly how this trend is maturing. However, the global nature of the trend, impacting emerging and established economies worldwide, sig- nals many twists and turns in the road ahead. These economies, each with different laws and The People’s Bank of backed by a country that has a debt-to-GDP ratio ap- business practices, will need to establish new govern- China may be rethinking proaching 300 percent? mental and business structures to regulate the cre- how cryptocurrency investments are Perhaps Marks and Dimon are referring to Japan, ation and implementation of digital currencies. And regulated, but digital with its 10-year zero-interest government bonds and that process will trigger uncertainty and, as a result, is a way of life for the its debt-to-GDP ratio of 250 percent? dramatic swings in market activity as we have seen country’s 700 million Or is it the ECB’s negative interest rate policy and between July and September. smartphone users. the $2 trillion-plus bond-buying schemes that have Digital currency Ethereum’s stock value climbed Shutterstock them in love with the euro? 10 percent in a single day in mid-August, bringing it to a 70 percent gain for the month and more than a 4,000 percent increase for the year. What fueled that TREND FORECAST rapid growth? Among the key reasons was increas- ing demand from South Korea investors, which ac- As more nations worldwide go cashless, and the range of new cryptocur- rency offerings widens, the participation among the general public to counted for 30 percent of the gains. purchase digital currencies and investors to invest in them increases. But On that same day, London-based online trading the speed at which digital currency investment is increasing worldwide is company IG got behind Ethereum. That IG backed prompting governments to intervene, seeking to regulate, control or cease Bitcoin’s chief competitor positively fueled trading in the growth of cryptocurrencies. that sector and served as a confidence marker in the For example, the Reserve Bank of India has formed a task force to ex- future of cryptocurrencies. amine cryptocurrencies as legal tender, stating it is “uncomfortable with non-fiat currencies. And the Peoples Bank of China has announced it is DIGITAL GOING MAINSTREAM. PERIOD halting its local digital currency exchanges. India and China join Britain, As we have already forecast, and what too many the United States, Canada, Venezuela and other countries that are taking analysts miss, is how the world is shifting. We’re measures that further suggest regulatory oversight. going from a society based primarily on ownership While we forecast volatility in the cryptocurrency markets, we expect dra- of material goods and their intrinsic value to one matic correction, and some might ultimately crash, only to be replaced by of accessing services. Uber, the world’s largest taxi new cryptos. As we have stated since the onset of the crypto trend, the high- est volatility threat will be driven by governments exerting more control company, owns no cars. Amazon, the largest retailer, and imposing regulations for any reason they want and at any time. doesn’t own a chain of big boxes. And Airbnb, a In addition, as the creation and use of cryptocurrencies continue to ex- worldwide lodging powerhouse, owns no hotels. pand worldwide and new players enter an increasingly crowded field, the From Bitcoin to Citicoin to SETLcoin, the world market will often respond with rapid and dramatic changes. is moving to digital currency. As blockchaining, the technology driving digital currencies, advances and

32 THE TRENDS JOURNAL | SUMMER 2017 cashless society improves, cryptocurrency becomes increasingly le- We’re going from a society gitimatized and more easily accepted in a world that has less identification with currency you hold in your based primarily on ownership of hand. Further, the notion that digital currencies are material goods and their intrinsic value speculative-only investments, because they have no to one of accessing services. physically measured value, ignores that millennials and subsequent generations worldwide are already In China, for example, while the government living cashless lives. cracks down on digital currency exchanges, for the Large segments of the global population, without a country’s 700 million smartphone users, many of physical connection to hard cash, have no emotional whom make instantaneous digital transactions each connection to their national currency, and therefore day, digital is an established way of life. do not value it as previous generations have. Adding more volatility to the crypto craze is the re- Thus, the cashless trend is strengthening as societ- cent announcement that the Chicago Board Options ies become more comfortable with digital currency Exchange, the biggest US options exchange, plans to as an extension of their everyday lives. offer Bitcoin futures trading in the coming months. TJ A primer on blockchaining: The technology behind digital currency Blockchaining. The technology is complex, but with digital credits to make other purchases. here’s a simple outline. The purpose is to create additional incentives to A “block” is a record of a transaction between abandon gas and oil and switch to solar power. two people that’s permanently stored in a da- SolarCoin uses the same technology to account tabase. The database is encrypted so the record for and manage transactions that Bitcoin does. of transactions can never be hacked or altered. Also, like Bitcoin, SolarCoins can be used as digital A “chain” is a series of blocks stored in time se- currency between any two people that agree that quence. (Think of a chain as the register in your SolarCoins represent genuine value. checkbook and a block as a single entry in that And even JPMorgan Chase, whose CEO, Jamie register.) Also, every member of a blockchain has a Dimon, claims Bitcoin is a “fraud” that is about to copy of it, so there’s no central server to be hacked. blow up, has reportedly begun using blockchain, To access your digital funds, you need a digital the technology behind Bitcoin, to cut trading key that lets you into the database and a second costs. key that opens your personal account in the data- — Bennett Daviss base. Only when you have both can you get hands on your money. It’s a double layer of security. The transactions also don’t require a bank or other middleman. For example, the “Transactive Grid” in Brooklyn, New York, uses blockchains to link houses that have rooftop solar panels to their neighbors who want to buy solar electricity. The blockchain database records the transactions and handles billing. Another example are SolarCoins. People or busi- nesses that generate solar electricity can claim one SolarCoin for every megawatt-hour of solar elec- tricity they generate and can document through their utility. Participants submit proof to the So- larCoin Foundation, which credits their accounts Shutterstock

SUMMER 2017 | THE TRENDS JOURNAL 33 DIVIDED STATES Make up your own mind? There’s a “Great Divide” within our own brains — and it’s eating us alive

By Doug Grunther CONTRIBUTING WRITER “Divided States of America,” the front-page headline of the Spring Trends Journal, reflects an even deeper “Great Divide.” It’s beyond politics and economics. In this article, using insights from modern neuro- science, psychology and philosophy, we’ll look at an inherent “divide” within the human brain and how we can work with it more effectively. When we turn on cable news, we see and hear constant anger, disbelief, vitriol and handwring- ing over the Trump phenomenon. If we check out newspapers and news magazines, we read progres- sives and liberals labeling Trump as narcissistic, psychologically damaged and greedy. Conservatives call Trump’s critics big-government money-wasters, socialist apologists and conspiracy fanatics. Conversation is gone. Anxiety and name-calling are in. Self-righteousness is rampant. Open-mindedness is virtually absent. But the Trump phenomenon didn’t appear in a vacuum. “The Great Divide” we witness and participate in, while significantly a result of economic dispar- Shutterstock / Macrovector ity that’s grown for decades, is actually the result of a deeper disparity in the balance between the two hemispheres of our brains that process information in different and important ways.

34 THE TRENDS JOURNAL | SUMMER 2017 divided states

LEFT BRAIN, RIGHT BRAIN While neuroscientists may disagree on specifics, they’ve known for decades that an anatomical line divides our brains into two regions: the left and right hemispheres. This fascinating and important structural divide, and the ways it affects how we perceive and react to the world, was first noted in the 1960s. Neuropsy- chologist and future Nobel Laureate Roger Sperry observed differences in mental capabilities and pref- erences of the two hemispheres after brain surgery. Sperry said each hemisphere is “...a conscious system in its own right, perceiving, thinking, re- membering, reasoning, willing and emoting, all at a characteristically human level, and... both the left and the right hemisphere may be conscious simul- taneously in different, even in mutually conflicting, mental experiences that run along in parallel.” In the last 20 years, thanks in part to advances in magnetic-resonance imaging, researchers have confirmed more precisely how the two sides divide responsibilities. As described by a leading researcher into the mod- ern mind, Daniel Pink, “The left hemisphere handles sequence, literalness and analysis. The right hemi- sphere, meanwhile, takes care of context, emotional expression and synthesis. Of course, the human brain, with its 100 billion cells forging 1 quadrillion connections, is breathtakingly complex. The two hemispheres work in concert, and we enlist both sides for nearly everything we do. But the structure of our brains can help explain the contours of our times.” The left hemisphere of our brain at its highest function is logical, analytic, rational and verbal. It breaks down every situation into smaller, simpler, knowable parts and always moves toward certainty. Our left-hemisphere brain simply cannot tolerate ambiguity or complexity. In contrast, the right hemisphere is intuitive, imag- inative and non-verbal. It operates out of curiosity, experimentation, playfulness and flexibility. The left hemisphere seeks to know and “control” reality. The right hemisphere seeks a “big picture” perspective. It’s open to change and collaboration. Why nature and evolution led to this clear divide, Shutterstock / Macrovector most apparent in the human brain, is a subject of de- bate. But it exists, and has been repeatedly confirmed by medical and laboratory experiments. And as we shall see, it is also clear that for quite

SUMMER 2017 | THE TRENDS JOURNAL 35 divided states some time, a deep trend has been operating regard- When we’re overbalanced into the left hemisphere, ing our divided brain. It has particularly escalated in the fear of change and uncertainty makes us obses- the modern era, leading to a potentially devastating sive, controlling, self-centered and anxious. imbalance. The better we understand it, the better the chance we can turn it into our advantage. THE TRUMP FACTOR Let’s dive in. The election of Donald Trump, and the great di- vide that has our country and THE DIVIDED BRAIN virtually the entire world in a IN THE WESTERN WORLD state of almost perpetual anxiety, The line above refers to a fas- can be seen as the result of our cinating book, “The master and minds being overly dominated his emissary” by Iain McGilchrist. by left-hemisphere thinking. He’s a medical doctor/psychia- That, as we shall see, has been a trist and a former Oxford literary growing trend over the past 150 scholar. Using insights from neu- years. roscience, history, psychology, McGilchrist states, “Left-hemi- philosophy and art, McGilchrist sphere thinking is clear-cut and goes into great depth to reveal direct. It divides and eliminates how modern cultures in general, until cutting through to a simple, and American culture in particu- direct result. This ability serves lar, have relied predominantly us well when engaged with on left-hemisphere perception. practical situations calling for That, he said, has led to our cur- clear, unambiguous results. But rent age of anxiety. It threatens, it becomes prejudiced, isolation- he says, our long-term existence. ist and fearful when confronted The “master” of his title refers with situations requiring a big- the right hemisphere of our Trump’s “build a wall” picture perspective, empathy for others and the abil- brains. While both hemispheres are essential, the strategy appeals ity to collaborate. Left-hemisphere thinking always right hemisphere first picks up stimuli and informa- to our left-brain veers towards ‘certainty’ even in complex situations tion from the environment. It unconsciously starts to hemisphere, which looks for certainty and where a clear, simple result is impossible.” process it from a “big picture” perspective based on familiarity. If we apply this description of left-hemisphere experiences and genetic memories. Shutterstock / Macrovector thinking to the key emotional issue Trump exploited The “emissary” of the title refers to the left hemi- as he ascended to the presidency, some interesting sphere of our brain. It consciously takes information insights are revealed. from the right hemisphere and narrows it into more practical, analyzable useable bits. “BUILD A WALL!” A general overview of how the two hemispheres As Washington Post Senior Editor Mark Fisher work: pointed out: “With or without Trump’s extraordi- Left hemisphere: Practical, analytical, protective, nary appeal, Americans were determined this year to self-enclosed. Interprets the world based on what it send the politicians a message about the pain caused can know with certainty; concerned with the “use- by a decades-long collapse of certainties about what fulness” of things. America looks like, what constitutes a family and Right hemisphere: Intuitive, creative, empathic, how we earn a living.” worldly. Interprets the world based on a “big picture” As previously noted, our left-brain hemisphere perspective. Comfortable with social collaboration looks for certainty and familiarity. If unchecked by and complexity. Uses wisdom over knowledge. integrating with more empathic right-hemisphere In general, the left hemisphere is more closely in- processing, people will react aggressively and often terconnected within itself; it is “wired” to deal with violently to uncertainty and change. what it already knows. When we use our left brains Trump tapped into this. He focused on fear, at our best, we gain clarity and assurance. We then launching his campaign with a promise to “build a integrate our right-brain capacity for a wider per- wall” to keep marauding, rapist “bad hombre” Mexi- spective and more collaborative instinct. cans out of the United States.

36 THE TRENDS JOURNAL | SUMMER 2017 divided states

The “build a wall” Trump strategy goes far beyond The first cities were necessarily “walled” to protect Mexico. It goes to the heart of the primary generator against invaders. But overbalance toward this per- of fear and anxiety gripping our culture: Globaliza- spective — while eventually building conveniences tion. and comforts of modern life based on self-centered This expanding movement of people, capital, ser- competition — also have “walled” us off from the vices and information, generated by the most power- more open-minded big-picture collaborative think- ful technological force in human ing required in this new global history, i.e. computer intelli- era. gence, is the key generator. According to McGilchrist From the right-hemisphere (author of “The master and his perspective of the brain, this emissary,” as previously noted), expansion is a positive sign of this problematic imbalance greater access to understand- toward left-hemisphere think- ing, wisdom and collaboration. ing accelerated about 150 years Viewed from the left-hemisphere ago in the Western world: “...It is perspective, the gain in knowl- the Industrial Revolution which edge is a great asset. enabled the left hemisphere to But there is underlying anxiety make its most audacious assault at the loss of national boundaries yet on the world of the right and the ability to create a self-en- hemisphere... and underwrites closed, protective environment. the defining characteristics of For example, the most left-brain- the modern world... this move- oriented modern country in the ment was obviously, colossally, world, the United States, is the man’s most brazen bid for power only major country to pull out of over the natural world.” the Paris Climate Agreement, a Out of the left-hemisphere protectionist move against one of the most globally Our left-brain grasp for power and certainty, the Industrial Revo- collaborative agreements in history. hemispheres focus on lution ensured a world in which interchangeable When our left-hemisphere brain perspective is not protecting what we parts referred not only to industrial machines, but have — including our integrated with the right hemisphere’s empathic/col- families. to people on assembly lines. Captains of industry laborative/global perspective, the left side always will Shutterstock / Macrovector and CEOs of expanding corporations could be much resort psychologically to a “build a wall/protectionist” more “certain” of the bottom line. We’re well aware mentality as a survival reaction. This shows up at the of the advantages this mindset offers: expanding dinner table, workplace and social get-togethers, as economies, medical breakthroughs and modern well as the political landscape. conveniences. If left unchecked, however, we get the modern audacity of seeing the world as a bunch of THE ROOTS OF IMBALANCE things to competitively monopolize, regardless of the This is a big story. What’s more important than cost to environmental health and social injustice. understanding, as well as we can, how our brains and When overloaded toward left-hemisphere think- minds work? And how to use them most effectively ing, McGilchrist writes: “One would expect a sort of amid a new global zeitgeist? dismissive attitude to anything outside of its limited The left hemisphere has an important role to play focus, because the right hemisphere’s take on the in evolutionary terms. whole picture would simply not be available to it.” I emphasized “dismissive” because it accurately de- scribes the basic attitude of not only Donald Trump, TRENDPOST but of his detractors as well. Why go into something “deeply” and intelligently when it’s so much easier Will we get our brains and minds back into better balance in time? This will depend in large part on whether we allow ourselves to continue being and more comfortable to just dismiss all perspectives trapped behind the psychological wall of anger, ego gratification, fear and not our own? dismissiveness — or choose to reflect on a “bigger picture” of who we are and how we can better adapt to the emerging era of global connection. PROMISE FOR THE FUTURE So, if the self-centered, anxiety-producing mindset

SUMMER 2017 | THE TRENDS JOURNAL 37 divided states of overbalanced left-hemisphere an emerging trend toward a thinking has been a continuous more right-brain perspective. trend for such a long time, what Again I cite Daniel Pink: “The chance is there to shift it back to- Information Age has unleashed ward greater balance with right- a prosperity that in turn places brain perspectives? a premium on less rational sen- Daniel Pink, an expert in work, sibilities — beauty, spirituality, management and behavioral emotion. The curtain is rising on science, writes, “Last century, a new era, the Conceptual Age. machines proved they could If the Industrial Age was built on replace human muscle. This people’s backs, and the Informa- century, technologies are prov- tion Age on people’s left hemi- ing they can outperform human spheres, the Conceptual Age left brains — they can execute is being built on people’s right sequential, reductive, compu- hemispheres.” tational work better, faster and We see signs of this underlying more accurately than even those trend as millions of millenni- with the highest IQs.” als are consciously adopting a Computers can beat our best lifestyle attuned to a cleaner en- chess players, out-diagnose our vironment and a preference for best physicians, run our factories more efficiently Our right-brain meaningful experiences over the pursuit for material and drive much more safely that we can. This is the hemispheres prioritize gain (see my article “Welcome to the Garden of Epi- most important reason those crucial swing voters creativity and curus,” Trends Journal, Winter 2017). collaboration, qualities in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin are los- that differentiate I also wrote about the emerging trend of how ac- ing jobs and getting lower wages. In addition, many humans from artificial cess to the world’s knowledge and wisdom, available million more Americans, including attorneys, ac- intelligence. at our fingertips through the World Wide Web, is countants, Realtors and hedge-fund analysts, among Shutterstock / Macrovector forcing education systems to replace the mind- others, will suffer the same fate. numbing requirement of memo- This important trend points rizing rote facts and “fitting to the need for, and is already in” with a more open-sourced, starting to affect, changes toward creative strategy of helping stu- a more right-brain-oriented dents discover their true talents culture. Doesn’t it make sense and interests (see “From Atoms that if millions of human jobs to Bits,” Trends Journal, Spring are going to continue to be lost 2017). to computer intelligence that we The Harvard Business Review shift our economy to create work reported, “With (artificial intelli- requiring right-brain attributes gence) taking over routine infor- computers can’t match? mation and manual tasks in the As Pink points out in his arti- workplace, we need additional cle, “Revenge of the Right Brain,” emphasis on qualities that dif- “It is the task of the right hemi- ferentiate human workers from sphere to carry the left beyond, AI — creativity, adaptability and to something new, something interpersonal skills.” These are ‘other’ than itself... the left hemi- all right-brain related and many sphere delivers what we know, corporations understand this. rather than what we actually And so, underneath the ran- experience.” cor and bitterness of the “Great Underneath the yelling, screaming, dismissive, Divide,” we see signs of an emerging new paradigm angry culture we see and hear every night in the based on a revitalization of right-hemisphere per- media, the workplace and public square comprise spectives. TJ

38 THE TRENDS JOURNAL | SUMMER 2017 XXXXXXDRIVERLESS

Tesla Efforts by Tesla’s Autopilot team seem to be advancing more slowly than the company’s stated goals. Self-driving cars: Good bet or a money pit? Beware: The hype continues to outpace the real challenges this industry faces

By Derek Osenenko EXECUTIVE EDITOR EVERYONE FROM THE BIG THREE automakers to insurance companies and chip designers is ac- celerating efforts to create self-driving cars — and accelerating the hype, too. But while the auto industry is gobbling up technol- A good example of hype outpacing reality is Tesla ogy companies in multi-billion-dollar deals to accel- Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk. He’s been on a erate their progress toward autonomous vehicles and high-powered year-long campaign touting his com- telling shareholders, investors and consumers that a pany’s progress and commitment toward producing driverless world is just around the corner, the Trends vehicles that drive themselves. But the engineers Research Institute maintains its prediction that the tasked with developing the hardware to do just that road will turn out to be longer and bumpier than quietly rebuked those claims. most expect. In fact, the Autopilot team under Musk, tasked Our analysis of the driverless trend and the auto with developing driverless technology, is increas- industry overall shows a pattern of failures, a sus- ingly indicating that its efforts are advancing slower tained lack of inventiveness and propensity to over- than the company’s stated goals and deadlines. And, promise and under-deliver. Autopilot’s director and more than a dozen engineers

SUMMER 2017 | THE TRENDS JOURNAL 39 driverless

it would shift its efforts to focus on self-driving TRENDPOST shuttle service vehicles that would transport Apple employees around its campus. Autonomous vehicles will spend decades in refinement before the Tesla That announcement scuttled the earlier bold dream of fully automated vehicles is realized. And even after the technol- proclamation that it would develop its own Apple- ogy has been developed, it will spend more years “penned” in clearly defined branded self-driving vehicles and signaled a warning locations, such as airports, corporate campuses, construction/mining sites, to future CEOs and the business media about the industrial parks and warehouses. driverless auto industry and the claims they've been Eventually, driverless commercial and public transportation vehicles will selling. be used along routes that are clearly and tightly structured. In an industry constantly beset with frequent and serious recalls, and mega-dollar lawsuits stemming from mechanical failures, as much atten- DRIVERLESS VEHICLE ADVANCES? tion should be given to technological failures as the promises automakers Still, there have been a number of developments and tech companies are making to their shareholders. worth noting that underscore where progress is And, further complicating the rise of driverless vehicles are emerging being made and where it’s faltering. federal guidelines governing how they should be managed that give more Tesla has sped to the head of the convoy, literally control to the federal government over state governments. and figuratively, by saying that it will introduce its For every promise of a Jetsons-like near-term automated vehicle future, electric long-haul truck this fall. The plan is to test there is a parallel and under-reported track of failed tests, some that would the trucks on highways in California and Nevada. have been catastrophic in real-life settings. The truck is the first component of Tesla’s plans Already this year, auto sales have sunk and subprime loans have esca- for “road trains” — long lines of self-driving trucks lated. The industry, which has failed for a generation or more to create that follow a lead vehicle (presumably also a truck) breakthrough, innovative products, is now pumping tens of billions of driven by a human. The driverless trucks will be able dollars into a driverless vehicle that will not materialize as efficiently and to follow the leader like ducklings follow Mother. The quickly as they predict. This will increasingly create downward pressure on auto company stocks, making them targets for Chinese takeovers and other trucks’ human drivers would be able to sleep or rest mergers and acquisitions. on long, tedious interstate runs and take the wheel for skilled work, such as backing up to a loading dock. The idea is to eventually eliminate humans entirely. and team managers have resigned in just the last few The Telsa announcement is consistent with the months. Trends Research Institute’s 2016 forecast that while Apple is another example of how the hype has driverless vehicles for the general public are decades jumped ahead of the science and technology. away, “a concentration on investment and research The company recently scaled back its ambitious in autonomous vehicles in commercial trucking plan to build self-driving cars and instead announced and public-transportation arenas will become more

Testing a Waymo mini- van in this summer's ex- treme heat (above 110 degrees) at Davis Dam, on the border of Nevada and Arizona. Waymo via Facebook

40 THE TRENDS JOURNAL | SUMMER 2017 driverless

partnered with auto-parts company Bosch to field self-driving taxis by 2021. (Passengers would sum- mon the cabs through a smartphone app.) Ford also has targeted that year for its own version of autono- mous cars. Early versions are expected to be able to operate only within electronically “fenced” areas — a college campus, for example — so bugs can be found and fixed before heading out into urban traffic. Shutterstock The insurance industry also is finding its way in In a research study this August, autonomous cars this new world. Farmers Insurance has designed a thought a stop sign that had graffiti on it was a new policy for Tesloop, a ride-sharing service using speed-limit sign. Tesla cars in southern California. Farmers is using prominent and build momentum” because simpler, the venture to test and refine coverage designs for more direct and traffic-free routes are easier to navi- vehicles that embrace autonomous features. gate. But, as is often the case, technology generates an Yet, even this development will face limitations. enthusiasm that accelerates past practicality. The world’s highways and byways are too varied and An August 2017 study from the University of complex to provide clear pathways void of unseen Washington found that adding a little graffiti to a dangers and common occurrences for driverless stop sign confused autocars into thinking the sign vehicles to manage. They are becoming vastly over- was, instead, a 45 mph speed-limit sign. A scientist at crowded not only in the US but across the globe. the University of Michigan discovered that precisely tuned sounds caused the sensors on self-driving ve- CRITICAL TEST hicles to misread inputs. Tesla has asked Nevada’s Department of Motor Ve- And that doesn’t take into account the creativity hicles for permission to test a rudimentary version of and skills of everyday hackers out for thrills and brag- its road-train idea on public roads. Other companies, ging rights. including Uber and a partnership between Volvo and There’s also the human factor. A March 2017 AAA The Daimler-Bosch Peloton Technology, are chasing the same concept. study found that 54 percent of Americans are afraid collaboration expects The Virginia Department of Transportation has to field self-driving of sharing the road with fully automated cars. taxis by 2021. Those in partnered with its federal counterpart to test self- That number will significantly increase once a specified area of town driving cars in express lanes on freeways outside driverless cars actually hit the roadways. And once seeking rides would order a car-sharing car of Washington, D.C. Tests will include not only driverless vehicles are involved in accidents, legal or robot taxi via their bumper-to-bumper caravans at travel speeds but also liabilities and costs will escalate rapidly, further slow- smartphones. other kinds of technologies that will help the cars ing the evolution to a driverless future. TJ Daimler obey road signs and stay in their lanes. Meanwhile, some hopefuls are already setting self- driving cars loose on city streets. Waymo, Google’s spin-off company, has 600 self-driving Chrysler Paci- fica vans in Phoenix and is offering free rides to folks going to the office, ballgame or dentist. In one incarnation or the other, Google has been methodically gathering data from its self-driving prototypes since 2010 and is now partnered with ride service Lyft to keep gathering even more data. The problem for Waymo, Uber and other tech- centric companies is that they have no means for making cars. And automakers have no means to de- velop the technology. That’s why so many are merg- ing with or buying into high-tech companies they believe have the expertise and resources to advance driverless-vehicle technology. Daimler AG, which makes Mercedes Benz, has

SUMMER 2017 | THE TRENDS JOURNAL 41 EPIPHANY

Shutterstock Search engines read data, but don’t seek useful connections among results. The next step: teaching systems to assign meaning to raw data. The next big... BIG thing Data will determine our everyday decision-making

Trends Research Institute staff Imagine intelligence agents running around the World Wide Web. They’re performing deep research based on our fields of interest. They’re helping us make intuitive leaps toward new ways of understanding the world. This, in fact, already is happening. able to machines, but the effect will be an exponen- And it quickly will increase as we become more tial leap in our ability to make more precise and more familiar with a new level of technology that enhances creative connections among the billions of bits of collaboration between human and computer intel- information in cyberspace. ligence. As valuable as search engines are, the algorithms Welcome to The Semantic Web. running them are limited to reading data. They don’t The focus is on making the Web more understand- seek useful connections among the results.

42 THE TRENDS JOURNAL | SUMMER 2017 epiphany

When we type a request into a search engine, we hypothesis or leads that might be fruitful to investi- get back dozens, often hundreds, of documents that gate. Or, as IBM Vice President (John) Gordon put it, relate in some way to the search. But the order of ‘Watson gives researchers ‘smarter hunches.’” the results is based on qualities such as “page rank,” We find this last quote particularly inspiring. It which reflects not that a document is most relevant, points to how enhanced computer intelligence will but most easily identified. So, we then must sift lead not only to more effective “empirical” results, through most of the documents to find those most but will help us sharpen our human intuitive in- meaningful for our purpose. stincts to discover new insights and creative pos- Not for long. sibilities. One of the leading minds developing The Seman- tic Web is Tim Berners-Lee, the person who invented AN EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE the World Wide Web in 1989. He’s founding direc- This next level of the World Wide Web is poised tor of the World Wide Web Foundation, which was to revolutionize the way we educate children and Tim Berners-Lee, who launched in 2009 to coordinate efforts to further the adults. invented the World potential of the web to benefit humanity. In the article “Semantic Web Technology and the Wide Web in 1989, advocates teaching Berners-Lee advocates this premise: Teaching Future of Learning,” Justin Marquis wrote, “Con- computers how to better computers how to better attach meaning to raw data ducting a search will return not a random list of web attach meaning to raw enables people to collaborate with computer intel- pages, but rather some sort of organized report based data, thus enabling people to collaborate ligence at a much deeper level. on all of the information available. This report could with them at a much include relevant video, opposing positions on related deeper level. SMARTER HUNCHES issues, analyzed data and information about other Shutterstock James Hendler, director of the Rensselaer Polytech- sources of knowledge in your immediate geographi- nic Institute for Data Exploration and Applications, cal area.” writes, “The key problem is one of semantics — that This will lead to personal learning networks that is, the meaning of the words and symbols that people will totally shake up high school and college institu- use in their day-to-day lives... When told to ‘put the tions as we know them. Using a web agent based fish in the tank,’ a person would generally look for on semantic web technology, a student could access a container of water and not an Army tank or any educational content from anywhere in the world. of the many other things in the world for which the He or she could set up a custom-designed browser term ‘tank’ might be used. Human language is inher- to not only access relevant data, but organize it in ently ambiguous, with most words having multiple meaningful ways according to one’s own unique in- meanings, and the context in which a word is used terests and goals. makes a huge difference.” As a result, schools and universities will have to We take for granted the inherent ambiguity that adapt to the new environment where students ac- gives our language depth and meaning. (We still cessing The Semantic Web have the collaborative remember an episode of “Get Smart,” the popular ability to cross-pollinate ideas and insights from 1960s sitcom: Hiding from antagonists, secret agent literally billions of bits of information that previously Maxwell Smart says to his dimwitted partner Hymie, would be too complex to consider. TJ “Kill the light.” So the guy shoots the lamp with three bullets.) TRENDPOST One way of tracking the progress of The Semantic Web is to look at the contributions of Watson, the The key philosophical shift emerging here is from a reliance on documents IBM supercomputer that famously beat the best with pre-determined perspectives, orientations and world views to a reli- human contestants on the quiz show “Jeopardy” in ance on raw, free data that can be re-connected according to one’s own 2011. curiosities, intuitions and creative insights. By teaching computers how to meaningfully link data according to our Just three years later, Jessica Leber wrote in article personal choices, The Semantic Web has the potential to break down the for Fast Company: “Watson’s aim is to speed up entrenched walls of academic fiefdoms and institutionalized conformity. discoveries by teams of researchers by, for example, If we take advantage of this emerging opportunity, the very nature scanning and interpreting millions of scientific of what we mean by “intelligence” will be enhanced in new, more open- books, articles, and data points – far more than any minded and potentially enlightened ways. person’s brain could analyze – and generating new

SUMMER 2017 | THE TRENDS JOURNAL 43 RUST BELT 2.0

The combination of the information Cloud, mobile communication and data analysis is turning cities smart. Cities get smart Shutterstock The Internet of Things is transforming urban centers By Bennett Daviss CONTRIBUTING EDITOR HALF THE WORLD’S POPULATION lives in cities, the World Health Organization says. The pro- portion is expected to reach 70 percent by 2050. To make these ever-expanding human hives livable as well as affordable, the efficient flow of services and resources in the city has to be perfected. That level of intelligence has eluded people. But it hasn’t stumped the Internet of Things. company Lotadata to track use, and users’ demo- This blend of intelligent sensors, the information graphics, at city parks. Analyzing patterns in the data Cloud, mobile communication and data analysis is lets the city target resources and design programs transforming chaotic urban centers into smart cities. more effectively. The result: Cities that work better, both for admin- Perhaps no mid-size city has done more with data istrators and residents. than Louisville, Kentucky. Through its “Louiestat” Pittsburgh has created a GPS app that tracks snow- data-collection system, city managers identify prob- plows and sends a message to residents’ smartphones lem areas, gather data, share it across departments to to let them know their street has been cleared. determine the cause of the problem, then implement Chicago uses predictive software to forecast which solutions. trash dumpsters are most likely to fill quickly. By For example, the city noticed that many fires oc- emptying them more often, the city has become 20 curred in neighborhoods where community-service percent better at controlling its rat population. caseworkers visited clients. The city trained case- San Leandro, California, uses software from the workers to audit clients’ homes for fire safety con-

44 THE TRENDS JOURNAL | SUMMER 2017 rust belt 2.0 cerns and to educate clients about things like smoke alarms and fire hazards. The number of fire calls shrank. As an example of how smart cities can be, consider During snowstorms, the streetlight: It’s not just a streetlight any more. cities can monitor Los Angeles is investing more than $60 million to their plows and send messages to residents' swap old sodium-vapor streetlight bulbs for LEDs. It smartphones when will save about $10 million a year in electricity costs. their streets have been The brighter LED lights also deter crime in some plowed. areas, reducing the city’s cost of police and emer- Shutterstock gency-medical services. That’s smart-city management. But the poles themselves are valuable real estate that become key hubs of communication, data collection, traffic man- agement and revenue for smart-city governments. For example, cities are installing electric-vehicle chargers on streetlight poles. By plugging in and Smart data enables swiping a credit card, people can fuel up while they cities to find and shop, dine or keep business appointments down- educate people about town. Cities can lease space on the pole to an electric fire hazards in their homes, reducing company or earn a percentage of the price drivers dangers to them and pay for the curbside charge. firefighters. Some cities are trading in old “dumb” poles for Shutterstock poles that have space for mobile phone cells. The new poles are slightly thicker at the top than the old ones; cell-phone carriers can put mini-stations inside. That sharpens and speeds phone signals, es- pecially for increasingly data-heavy apps. Downtown denizens are happier with their services. Carriers gain a competitive edge. And the city makes money when carriers lease pole space. Water-distribution systems can monitor water volume and LIGHT BY DAY, NIGHT AND DUSK pressure to spot leaks Telensa, based in Cambridge, England, makes and alert electronic- smart streetlights that can be controlled remotely, monitoring systems. emitting the right amount of light for the time of day Shutterstock or depending on the number of people in the region. The light’s sensors also can report to maintenance departments when the bulb burns out or the light develops other problems. An added benefit: Little solar-electric panels can be mounted atop the smart-pole arm, generating elec- tricity the city can sell to stores, apartment dwellers or back to the electric grid. Sensors detect which The space remaining on the poles can be fitted parking spaces are about to open up, and drivers with various sensors to measure carbon-dioxide can reserve them in levels and other pollutants. Palm-size boxes from public or private lots companies such as DasBox can monitor up to 36 with their smartphones. environmental factors and send data to a central Shutterstock station. This gives managers real-time data enabling them to decide whether to declare an air quality alert or to open shelters in certain districts in a heat emer-

SUMMER 2017 | THE TRENDS JOURNAL 45 rust belt 2.0

Some cities are trading in old “dumb” example, its transmitter could switch all traffic lights in its path to green. lightpoles for poles that have space Other sensors mounted on streetlight poles and traffic signals can monitor the number of vehicles, for mobile phone cells. or degree of back-up, and continuously adjust the times that a light stays green or red. Those sensors gency. AT&T’s “Current CityIQ” sensors can even could communicate with others in the area through detect gunshots. the Cloud, managing the flow of cars and trucks in a And there’s always room for tiny cameras to re- single, integrated flow that would maximize efficient cord — and thereby perhaps deter — street crime or movement and banish fender-benders. Barcelona, document traffic accidents. in Spain, has used data from cameras and sensors to Singapore, with notoriously strict standards of repattern the city’s traffic flow. Municipal managers public behavior, uses cameras to spot litterers. The say it will be 21 percent smoother. watchful eyes keep streets tidier and cut the cost of clean-up crews. MANAGING ENERGY, TOO Because an estimated 75 percent of energy used, SMOOTHING TRAFFIC and 80 percent of carbon dioxide emitted, happens In fact, smart streetlights are only one component in cities, reducing vehicles’ energy use and boosting of a smart city’s ability to monitor and manage traffic efficiency mean saving tax dollars and health care flows. costs. And that occurs while making urban cores Technology from companies such as Clearview nicer places to be. Intelligence can use those mounted sensors and But saving time on the road isn’t the only way a other tools to analyze traffic speeds and congestion, smart city cuts and manages energy use. and alert police and commuters to hotspots where The smart electric grid is gradually making its en- tie-ups might be about to occur. The traffic system’s trance. artificial intelligence — or human traffic managers Our century-old system of generating and distrib- at a central hub — can then send alerts to smart cars, uting electricity isn’t designed to welcome renewable which could communicate with traffic-monitoring power from decentralized sources like rooftops or software to determine the most trouble-free route to to confront post-9/11 security challenges. Replacing the driver’s destination. a mindless electric grid with a smart system would Instead of letting drivers wander in search of a eliminate enough waste to reduce annual United parking space, software from ParkWhiz and other States national electricity use 9 percent a year by developers lets public or private garages advertise 2030, according to the nonprofit Smart Grid Con- open parking spots. Drivers can reserve them over sumer Collaborative. their smartphones with a credit card. Spaceek’s tech- That saves 400 billion kilowatt-hours and more nology deploys a network of sensors across a city and than $40 billion annually in the US alone. uploads information to the Cloud about which park- On a large scale, smart-grid sensors monitor usage ing slots are open. and energy flow to instantly spot breakdowns or Sensors also can be mounted on traffic lights and abnormalities. Intelligent software from companies linked to transmitters in emergency vehicles. When such as Enbala Power Networks can deftly juggle gen- an ambulance is driving hot to an accident scene, for eration and distribution even as demand fluctuates and solar or wind energy comes and goes in the grid. Smart-grid efficiencies also are possible at the TRENDPOST smallest scale. With cities growing relentlessly, municipal governments have no choice but For example, Utilidata’s AdaptiVolt software allows to enlist artificial intelligence, data analytics, remote sensing and Cloud electrical machinery to operate in the lowest accept- communications to make urban centers not only habitable, but also af- able voltage ranges that still ensure processes are fordable and efficient. Deft management of resources and waste will stretch carried out properly. Industries use less electricity, city budgets and improve urbanites’ quality of life. Creative entrepreneurs demand eases, less electricity is wasted as heat, and will find lucrative niches as cities’ systems need to continually become more parts and machines last longer. That saves businesses sophisticated and effective. money. By upgrading switches, seals and other parts of environmental controls in a Washington, D.C., 46 THE TRENDS JOURNAL | SUMMER 2017 rust belt 2.0 office building, the owner cut energy use 35 percent and is saving almost $800,000 a year.

GOING WITH THE FLOW When it comes to water, most cities leak. Smart Software can track use cities are learning to plug the holes. and demographics at parks, helping cities Some metropolises lose 20 percent or more of target their resources their water through cracks and holes in old pipes, better. wasting millions of dollars each year and jacking up Shutterstock residents’ water bills. Now, sensors dotted through- out a water-distribution system and on buildings’ water meters can monitor volumes and pressures. They sort through toilets flushing and washing machines filling to spot leaks and alert electronic- monitoring systems. Incremental efficiencies also can add up, even in something as mundane as turning water sprinklers Predictive software on and off. forecasts which Instead of leaving that to people, companies such dumpsters are most as Rachio and HydroPoint Data Systems use intel- likely to fill quickly, which lets cities better ligent systems. For instance, HydroPoint’s Weath- control rat populations. erTRAK software gauges temperature, humidity, Shutterstock soil moisture and other factors to determine when a patch needs watering. It turns on watering equip- ment and shuts it off instantly when certain mois- ture targets are reached. The connected approach saves water, energy and money.

SECURING SMART CITIES Traffic speeds and A city in which everything is digitally linked to ev- congestion can be monitored by smart erything else is, to hackers, what the Himalayas are streetlights, and police to mountain climbers: a series of challenges to be and commuters alerted conquered. to problem areas. Smart lights can also Late on a Friday night in 2013, hackers set off Dal- automatically turn las’ citywide network of hurricane-warning sirens. green for emergency They let them blast for more than 90 minutes. Also vehicles. in 2013, seven people were arrested for plotting – at Shutterstock the behest of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards – to dis- rupt computerized operations at a flood-control dam just north of New York City. With the number of smart devices connected Speaking at a hackers’ conference, a security ex- through the Internet increasing by more than 40 per- pert explained how he built a device small enough cent a year, the security challenge becomes almost in- to fit into a backpack that allowed him unauthor- conceivable — especially when digital security needs ized access to automated traffic-control systems to be integrated across myriad kinds of devices and in Washington, D.C., and New York City. He only specialized systems. had to stand within 500 feet of a control sensor and The history of electronic security will be repeated have a line of sight to the sensor. A drone could be in the smart city: Capacity will outstrip safety. Events, equipped with the same ability. whether hacks or breakdowns, will plunge cities The weakness is multiplied through what’s known here and there into chaos and reveal vulnerabilities. as “the cascade effect.” For example, disrupting a Engineers will scramble to fix them. Insights will be city’s GPS software could easily disrupt traffic con- hard-won and systems improved. The process will be trol and emergency-response systems. evolutionary, pitting hackers against cybercops. TJ

SUMMER 2017 | THE TRENDS JOURNAL 47 BREEDING ROBOTS

Mind meld New technologies bring us closer to brain-to- machine, and even brain-to-brain, communication By Bennett Daviss CONTRIBUTING EDITOR UNITING ORGANIC COMPUTERS — our brains — with their electronic counterparts has moved farther from science fiction and closer to reality, thanks to recent bioengineering innovations. The first is an artificial synapse, devised by -re Biochemical messages are sent from axons to den- searchers at Stanford University and Sandia National drites across those synapses. But a synapse is more Laboratories. than empty space. Since synapses are mainly empty space, why is this The axon’s side of a synapse is packed with tiny a big deal? Because synapses are the places in your chambers holding chemicals called neurotransmit- brain where thinking and memory happen. ters. The dendrite’s pod surface is studded with A brain cell, or neuron, is an octopus-like assembly. sockets — “receptors” — where those neurochemi- Trailing away from the cell body are two kinds of fila- cals nestle after they’ve crossed the synapse. An ments. Axons carry electrical impulses away from the electrical impulse coming down the axon from the neuron’s body to be sent to other neurons; dendrites cell body tells the axon which and what amount of Above: an illustration of receive electrical impulses from other neurons and neurotransmitters to release. The chemicals cross the synapses and neurons sending electro-chemi- direct them toward the neuron’s body. Axons and synapse and settle into the dendrite’s receptors. The cal signals. dendrites end in little pods and the pods face each kind and amount of the chemicals picked up by the Shutterstock other across tiny spaces called synapses. receptors send a particular electrical signal back to

48 THE TRENDS JOURNAL | SUMMER 2017 breeding robots the receiving neuron’s cell body. amounts of digital memory. As Technology Review When a particular event sets off an electrical magazine asked in a 2016 article, “Moore’s Law is pattern uniting a group of neurons through their dead. Now what?” synapses, a memory is formed. If the event happens The Stanford-Sandia team looked for the answer again, reactivating that pattern, the brain needs less inside our heads. energy to process that signal — and the memory is Using cheap, organic materials — mostly carbon strengthened. If you see Steve at work every day, it and hydrogen — the group made what it calls an takes less mental energy to quickly recognize Steve electrochemical neuromorphic organic device, or when you see him at the post office or the ballpark. ENODe. A neuron’s gaggle of axon terminals, and its up The device’s mechanism emulates a synapse but to 200,000 dendrites, make it possible for a single resembles a battery. The ENODe has battery-like neuron to be a part of thousands of these memory terminals, and protons flow between them through a patterns. With an estimated 100 trillion synapses in salty fluid. The terminals are analogous to axons and your brain, it’s not surprising that you can remember dendrites, and chemical ions traveling through the everything from arithmetic tables to the names of fluid take the place of neurotransmitters. the kids on your high-school baseball team. Perhaps most important, the team was able to send 500 distinctly separate electrical pulses through its HOW A COMPUTER MEMORIZES device. This translates to 500 different meanings of Computer memories, though, are different — and the electrical signal, all of which can be stored sepa- their difference gives them limits. A computer re- rately in one of these artificial neurons. In contrast, members things as a series of ones and zeroes. These a computer’s transistor has only two electrical states; electronic digits have to be stored in places physically it’s either on or off. Also, early versions of the ENODe separate from the places where chips process them. “remembered” the specific degrees of charge for more So a computer’s memory is limited by the physical than 24 hours — longer than some of us can remem- space designers give to it and the cost of manufactur- ber to pick up milk on the way home from work. ing memory chips. It did that not only combining memory and pro- This is making computer engineers nervous. cessing in the same physical space, but also using In the past, they could rely on Moore’s Law, which only about a tenth of the electricity that a conven- holds that the number of transistors — a computer’s tional computer does. equivalent of neurons — on a chip will double every When researchers simulated the ability of a theo- two years. But transistors’ size is now at the na- retical array of ENODes to learn, they found that noscale and fast approaching the limits of manufac- the array would easily master the task of recogniz- turing’s ability to make them smaller. ing handwritten digits from zero through nine with Moore’s Law is expiring just at a time when we’re more than 95 percent accuracy. expecting robotic personal assistants and smart Already, the researchers can make ENODEs about cars to manage our lives and take on more and five-millionths of an inch in size. That’s far bigger more complex tasks, all of which require prodigious than neurons or even today’s transistors, but still

Sandia researcher Alec Talin, left, and Elliot Fuller test the ENODe — an electrochemical neuromorphic organic device that could be the basis for future 3-D computer architec- tures, including flexible computer circuits that integrate with the hu- man brain. Photo by Dino Vournas

SUMMER 2017 | THE TRENDS JOURNAL 49 breeding robots

and six electrical threads. The group developed the device as a new tool to learn about brain functions and regions. By sending light into various parts of the brain, neurons there are stimulated. The electrical pathways they fire, and mental or physiological functions they engage, can tell researchers new things about what different parts of the brain do and how various parts interconnect. But the implications are much broader. Being able to pump fluids through these tiny tubes could channel anti-cancer drugs directly into the center of tumors or make it possible to drain an aneurysm without brain surgery. The power to send electrical signals into the brain could eventually bestow the power to control movement or even thoughts and emotions — or, in a distant future, be able to send our own thoughts or emotions to a computer or an- other person. MIT graduate student small enough to pack an array comprising a func- The ability to insert a tube into the brain isn’t new. Seongjun Park holds tional memory into a small space. The device’s ability What makes MIT’s device different, and better, is an example of a new to store hundreds of bits of information at the same that it’s not only as thin as a hair, but it’s also as soft flexible fiber, which is no bigger than a human time could be critical in designing computers that and flexible as brain tissue itself. hair and has successfully can deal instantly with the floods of visual and audio To reach that goal, the scientists needed something delivered a combination information that we expect our electronic assistants soft that conducted electricity. They engineered a of optical, electrical and chemical signals back and self-driving cars to handle with ease. polyethylene conductor, doped the material with and forth into the brain. But could the ENODe also be an interface between graphite flakes, and then compressed it in layers like Photo by Young Gyu Yoon brain and computer? the thin layers of dough in a French pastry. It is promising. As a result, inserting the tiny tube is likely to do far The ENODe is made of materials that mimic less, if any, collateral damage as it travels to its target human tissue’s flexibility and squishiness. Just as than today’s stiff wires would. important, it operates on very low electrical voltages. The fibers could be left in place for a period of time In contrast, an artificial synapse developed this year to deliver repeated doses of a medicine or observe by a European group needs almost a volt of electric- how brain regions behave under different conditions ity to store information — perilously close to the 1.5 over time. Also, the fibers are so small and unob- volts that break down body fluids in which the brain trusive that several could be inserted into a brain at is bathed. the same time to study how various regions interact under different conditions or events. PIPELINE TO THE BRAIN To test their invention, the MIT team threaded the Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers fibers into the brains of mice. They pumped a chemi- have taken a simpler route to getting information cal into the brain that sensitizes neurons to light. out of, and into, the brain. Then the researchers shot light pulses up the optical The group has developed a fiber no wider than a cable. The sensitized neurons created patterns of hair that can send electrical signals, light pulses and brain activity that the scientists then recorded using fluids into the brain and bring the same back out. the electrical conduits in the fiber. At the fiber’s core, an optical waveguide, similar to a The fibers are so small and unobtrusive that several fiber-optic cable, is paralleled by two fluid channels could be inserted into a brain at the same time to Being able to pump fluids through these tiny tubes could channel anti-cancer drugs directly into the center of tumors or make it possible to drain an aneurysm without brain surgery.

50 THE TRENDS JOURNAL | SUMMER 2017 breeding robots study how various regions interact under different conditions or events. TRENDPOST The research team’s next challenge is to create ma- terials even softer and more flexible to enable even The combination of artificial intelligence, microelectronics and brain re- more detailed brain research. But the unspoken im- search is blurring the line between human being and intelligent machine. plication of their work remains the possibility of even Assistive or therapeutic technologies will be the pioneering applications; then, market demand will drive more and more sophisticated uses outside more intuitive and sophisticated two-way electrical, of medicine. chemical and optical communication with a working Mapping the brain and learning how to target electrical pulses to specific brain in real time. regions could transfer knowledge between minds or infuse memories into people who never had the recalled experience. TALKING BRAIN TO BRAIN The union of bioscience and technology is shifting that prospect out of MIT’s approach is still a little low-tech for Elon the realm of fantasy and onto an engineering timeline. Musk. Having tackled electric transport, home power storage and the commercialization of outer space, Still, there are caveats. he’s ready to confront the complexities of the human Finding medical facilities willing to do brain mind. implants in healthy people for the sake of experi- Musk and a few partners have formed Neuralink, ment will be difficult at best. Experts have suggested a venture that will try to figure out how to implant that Musk find a medical need and pursue his idea what it calls a “neural lace” into human brains to en- through that venue instead. able brain-to-brain communication. Musk says that For example, imagine someone with paralyzed legs people can receive his implants by 2030. who wants to go to the kitchen for a snack. With As Musk sees it, transferring ideas by talking or typ- Musk’s Neuralink, the person could transmit the ing is literally 1 million times slower than the brain’s intention to go to the kitchen to an artificial intel- speed in processing information. Time’s a-wasting. ligence, which then would operate a set of electro- By embedding a network of devices in our brains a metrical “pants” that would walk the person to the fraction as big as a grain of sand, Elon thinks we could kitchen without the person having to consciously transmit thoughts directly — either between people control each movement of each leg and foot. The or, eventually, with an artificial intelligence. Elon says human and electronic minds would fuse to achieve his goal is what he calls consensual telepathy. a goal. Musk’s notion parallels a recent project announced Currently, researchers are discovering the neurobi- by Facebook: Within two years, Facebook has said, it ology of intention. So, it’s possible that Musk’s Neu- will have a working prototype of a skullcap studded ralink would someday be able to distinguish between with electrodes to gather your thoughts and auto- “I want to go to the bathroom” and “I want to go to matically print them on paper. the kitchen and make a peanut butter sandwich.” Given the current crude state of reading brain sig- The assistive technology could take it from there. nals from the outside, neuroscientists have scoffed at The mind meld that produces that stroll to the Facebook’s deadline. They also have scoffed at Musk’s kitchen is years, and possibly decades, away. But 10-year schedule — but not at his idea. these innovations have brought it closer. TJ

Elon Musk and his part- ners are working on a project that will enable consensual telepathy — brain-to-brain commu- nication with people or artificial intelligence. Neuralink via Facebook

SUMMER 2017 | THE TRENDS JOURNAL 51 XXXXXXENVIRONMENT Biodegradable plastic Technology is moving closer to creating plastic substitutes

with your potato peels and lawn clippings. That’s not necessarily so. To be genuinely biodegradable, an object must be able to be broken down by microbes within a few months into nontoxic substances that other mi- crobes can safely eat. Some bioplastics, but not all, can do that. Certain categories of bioplastics can’t biodegrade at all; others will do so only in industrial facilities dedicated to forcing the process. Sorting and managing bioplastics isn’t something that recy- cling centers, not to mention individual consumers, show a willingness to do. So, hopes are moving on from bioplastics to “oxo- Plastics made from By Trends Research Institute staff biodegradable materials biodegradable” versions. These are conventional have been the holy grail WHAT IF PLASTICS COULD BE MADE from biode- plastics — made from either petroleum or plant for scientists. They're gradable material? Just throw the old water bottles sources — to which some common, nontoxic metal getting closer, but are not there yet. and fast-food cutlery in the garbage; bacteria at the salts have been added. Shutterstock dump will eat them, in short order, down to harm- When the plastic is discarded, air and sunlight less substances. catalyze a reaction between the salts and the plastic. That goal is still elusive. But we’re getting closer. That process breaks down the plastic’s carbon chains The first big step came more than a decade ago until the plastic’s chemical nature is transformed. The when scientists figured out how to make something resulting materials decompose further by the usual called polylactic acid, or PLA, from corn. PLA is a processes that return leaves and dead bugs to nature. polyester that can be used as a basic ingredient in Many oxo-plastics already meet European and US manufacturing almost anything plastic. criteria to be labeled as biodegradable. By 2011, Coke and Pepsi were touting their decision Also, the formulation of an oxo-plastic can be fine- to replace petroleum-based plastic in their bottles tuned to speed or slow decomposition. For example, with plastics derived from plant waste and sugar a plastic sheet used to cover mulch and protect plants cane. But the plastic still behaved like plastic: It sur- over a cold winter could be programmed to dissolve vives for eons in a landfill or floating in the ocean, within a few months. Plastic shopping bags could be and leaches out noxious chemicals over time. formulated to last much longer. Next came bioplastics, made from a range of or- It’s a good step, but not the ultimate solution to ganic feedstocks. Some promoters call them “com- plastic pollution. postable,” implying that bioplastics can disintegrate Oxo-biodegradable materials need both oxygen harmlessly in your backyard compost heap along and sunlight to decompose; if buried deeper than a few inches in a landfill, the dissolution can’t hap- TRENDPOST pen. Also, oxo-plastics need to be separated from the usual run of recycled materials. Because most towns The new product-design ethic is “cradle to cradle.” That means making sure and recycling operations haven’t stepped up to do a discarded product is designed to become a feedstock for a process or crit- that, the Oxo-Biodegradable Plastics Association is ter when its useful life is over. Products that are recyclable or biodegradable urging that all plastics be made as oxo-plastics. That’s will gain increasing consumer cachet until they become standard. also not likely to happen soon. TJ

52 THE TRENDS JOURNAL | SUMMER 2017 XXXXXXTRENDING

US Department of Agriculture Due to the Great Recession, low agricultural prices and lost factory jobs, small towns are suffering. Rural America, not cities, the new center of poverty A generation ago, urban centers were cauldrons of poverty, crime and broken families. Today, the trend has reversed. America’s small, rural towns and their inhabitants are now America’s new down and out. Many of these hamlets once survived on agricul- ture, some on manufacturing and some on their TRENDPOST natural resources. But over the last 30 years, agri-business monopo- As the decline of rural counties and once thriving small cities accelerated, there was high media hopes and “expert” expectations lies put small farmers out of business, factories that the new world order of the internet and telework would bring closed and once valuable natural resources have young families and small companies back to the romance of small been replaced with alternatives. And the Great Re- town living. But today small towns in the central US are locked in a cession of 2008 dealt another crushing blow. tailspin of unemployment, poverty and family breakdown that has A Wall Street Journal report found that in 2013 long plagued inner cities. more people died in the most sparsely populated This downward spiral will continue until towns find new economic United States counties than were born. That hasn’t models to sustain themselves as tourist destinations, specialized happened since comprehensive records began to be education centers or other place-based value propositions. kept in the 1930s. The total US rural population has And as cities become overpopulated and too expensive, for new declined for five straight years. families, rural areas within striking distance of airports, major cities By a range of quality-of-life indicators that include and surrounded by natural beauty will again become appealing. stable families, educational attainment, teen births, reliance on welfare, unemployment and chronic dis- rural towns — among others, rural America now lags ease and opiod addiction levels — now the scourge of behind cities, suburbs and small metro areas.

SUMMER 2017 | THE TRENDS JOURNAL 53 trending The new electric grid: Smaller power sources run by local governments Endeavour Energy, an Australian electric utility, is laying the foundation for what it sees as a massive turn in the power-generation industry: Electricity creation and distribution will become the province of small, local entities — town governments, co-ops, factories, small businesses or even neighborhoods. Microgrids collect the energy produced by The change is being forced by the global rise of solar arrays on homes renewable energy sources coupled to in-line storage, and distribute it locally. such as Tesla’s Powerwall home batteries, as well as Shutterstock commercial-scale flow batteries and other storage technologies. TRENDPOST Endeavour is raising money to create a localized grid of about 200 homes near Sydney. The homes The electric utility industry’s shift toward microgrids is global. Worldwide, will be fitted with rooftop solar arrays coupled to in- microgrids will be a $23 billion market sector by 2021, according to the home storage batteries. research firm GlobalData. Endeavour also is developing a large storage array This is part of the electric-utility industry’s long period of for another housing tract in its service area. transformation: The business model of monopoly ownership of a centralized generation and distribution system is dying. The industry Other Australian utilities are exploring new busi- is testing new ways to survive, and a variety of new models are likely ness models, including microgrids linked to a larger, to flourish. Utilities may evolve into partners providing capital centralized grid for backup and load management, and technical expertise to locally owned microgrids or into holding and dedicated microgrids for shopping centers and companies that own part or all of a series of microgrids. hospitals.

Older tech workers, please apply While young tech whizzes are making new apps doing it with engineers whose average age is over 40. Older workers typically for your phone or designing cybersecurity protocols, Some tech giants, such as Oracle and IBM, have a have practical skills the youngsters may lack. Amazon Web Services is creating The Cloud that workforce with an average age above 35. That’s often Shutterstock these devices need to operate — and Amazon is because workers came to the companies fresh out of college and stayed. But Amazon is seeking older workers. The company organizes workers into small teams that work independently under tight dead- lines. This requires skills in management, decision- making and practicality that are gained most often through experience.

TRENDPOST Tech companies are realizing that kids fresh from college might have the latest skills, but the companies also are learning that the grounded infrastructure that powers inno- vation will demand skills won through ex- perience. Bigger tech companies, and savvy small ones, are seeking to diversify the age of their workforce.

54 THE TRENDS JOURNAL | SUMMER 2017 trending

Human-made nanoparticles kill leukemia Bioscientists at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have engineered biodegradable par- ticles that reprogram key immune-system cells inside the body to kill cancer. These nanoparticles target T cells that are among the immune system’s front-line defenders against viruses and other invaders. The particles were loaded with specific genes that turned T cells into special- ized leukemia fighters. The particles also were coated with molecules that made them stick to T cells, ensuring the T cells would absorb the transported genes. In a test on mice, the customized nanoparticles performed as well as conventional alternatives. The nanoparticles began showing results within 48 hours Biodegradable nanopar- and continued working for several weeks. TRENDPOST ticles (orange) carry That shaves precious time off the current approach short-lived gene therapy Immunotherapy is showing special promise to specific cells (light of extracting T cells from a patient and genetically teal). re-engineering them in special labs. That can take 10 in treating cancers. Combining innovations in early detection with in-body treatments, as Illustration by Kimberly Carney / days or more. Fred Hutch News Service the Hutchinson group has developed, could Human clinical trials are years away. Meanwhile, reduce cancer from a major disease to a major the team is planning experiments that will customize inconvenience by 2050. particles to attack other forms of cancer.

Saudi-Japan tech venture fund is world’s biggest

TRENDPOST Japan’s economy is burdened by a growing legion of retirees, and Saudi Arabia’s by the long-term shrinking global demand for oil. The Vision Fund’s formation will buoy their national treasuries into the future, which, in turn, should help quell internal political Shutterstock unrest. Japan’s SoftBank tech conglomerate and Saudi Ara- Also, now that major venture capital is no bia’s sovereign wealth fund have gathered $93 billion longer the sole province of western investors, to back new ventures, from artificial intelligence to tech startups in Asia and developing nations medical devices, across the technology landscape. may see an easier path to capital. The fund’s The fund’s goal is to top reserves of $100 billion to choices may offer other investors a map to plunk into public and private companies that will otherwise undiscovered opportunities. define the tech economy’s future. Called The Vision Fund, the two lead investors have gleaned capital commitments from Abu Dhabi’s investments in start-ups such as England’s Improb- capital fund and corporations including Apple, Fox- able Worlds virtual-reality venture and Paytm, India’s conn Technology Group, Qualcomm and Sharp. online payment company, have blocked opportuni- The fund already is bidding up prices; its early big ties here for other investors.

SUMMER 2017 | THE TRENDS JOURNAL 55 trending Climate action is economic engine Taking steps to curtail greenhouse-gas emissions cent by 2050, according to a new report from the could amp the world economy by as much as 5 per- Organization for Economic Cooperation and Devel- opment, of which the US is a member. The organi- zation is known for its support of free-market and TRENDPOST free-trade policies. The 309-page study draws its conclusions from The global private sector and its investors already are shifting assets away from fossil fuels and into a broader array of energy strategies, economic data from member countries, and recom- with increasing emphasis on renewable power sources. In the aggregate, mends investments in energy efficiency, infrastruc- investments in green energy are yielding greater returns than those in ture and low-carbon technologies. new fossil-fuel projects. The green-energy industry is creating more, and The study argues that if the world’s top 20 econo- better-paying, jobs than the high-carbon fuel industry. mies aggressively pursue these strategies, the coun- Companies and nations that stubbornly adhere to antiquated energy tries could add 1 percent to their average economic technologies will lose wealth and jobs to those that lead the way to this production by 2021. Continuing those policies and new energy economy. strategies will grow these economies 5 percent by 2050, the report concludes.

Vehicles along Paris’ famed Champs Elysses will no longer burn diesel fuel by 2025. Shutterstock As bans rise, diesel dying in Europe Paris has announced a ban on diesel vehicles start- ing in 2025; three other French cities will restrict die- sel vehicles’ access to urban centers during pollution TRENDPOST peaks. In Germany, Berlin, Stuttgart, Munich and Diesel engines appear be an early casualty in the European Union’s Cologne are mulling restrictions on diesel-engine new militancy about air pollution. As sales fall, automakers will have cars and trucks. Similar discussions are underway in less incentive to make diesel vehicles or to improve diesel technology. Spain and the United Kingdom. And, as diesel’s constituency shrinks, there will be less opposition to the As a result, diesel car and truck sales in Europe are bans. Diesel seems to be joining coal on the road to obsolescence. steadily dropping, down as much as 9 percent year over year in some markets. ing buyers away for fear that they’ll be stuck with cars The bans — or even the threat of them — are driv- they can’t drive in town.

56 THE TRENDS JOURNAL | SUMMER 2017 trending

TRENDPOST The technology of electric cars has not been mastered. In particular, the problem of recharging the new energy vehicles on a daily basis is a sticking point. While various technologies, from electric highways to solar-electricity panels on cars’ roofs, are being tested, the power problem will persist. Predictions that within a decade, electric-vehicle drivers will have a range of vehicle choices is not supported by the trend. Further, business models to support these emerging charging technologies have yet to be proven.

Woodland Park Zoo in Power poles to charge electric cars Seattle has installed Light & Charge units, in need of a business model which turn exist- Visitors to Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo now can batteries wirelessly during transit is, so far, fraught ing streetlights into plug their electric cars into a charging station that’s with technical obstacles. Plugging in for a quick electric-vehicle charg- ing stations. also a streetlight post. It’s part of a test project by charge while you shop or dine, and paying for the Woodland Park Zoo automaker BMW and the private firm eluminocity power as you would pay a parking meter, may be the US to turn streetlights into at-the-ready electronic- most workable compromise so far. vehicle chargers. The partners see their power poles sprouting in Drivers are used to fueling up in a few minutes and parking lots as well as along city streets. The German getting back on the road; spending an hour or more eluminocity GmbH has tested a two-plug pole in charging an EV isn’t practical for people on the go. Munich. The notion of an electric road that charges vehicles’

Printed solar panels: Fast, cheap renewable energy Researchers at Australia’s University of Newcastle have learned how to 3D-print cheap solar panels TRENDPOST quickly. At a cost of about $10 per square meter (about a yard), the panels represent the fastest and, Solar technologies are shifting from stiff perhaps, cheapest form of renewable power so far. panels of glass and silicon to flexible forms Using a water-based electronic ink containing that can cover windows invisibly or be semiconductor materials, the process layers solar rolled up like a blanket and backpacked to campsites. By 2035, cheap, portable, panels’ components onto transparent sheets as thin efficient solar cells will be used as much as as paper. The sheets can be rolled up for transport or conventional batteries are now. storage and attached to a surface using hook-and-eye strips. The new panels are proving to be more sensitive to The inventors say that, at commercial scale, 10 of dim light than many other versions of solar panels, their printers could turn out enough kilometers of enabling them to deliver more power longer during solar panels in a day to light 1,000 homes. Eventually, Professor Paul Dastoor with the printed solar the day. The panels even can squeeze a little electric- they hope to be able to paint solar “panels” directly panels. ity from moonlight. onto roofs and walls. University of Newcastle

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