Hold onto your hat, your wallet, and your wits.

After a tumultuous 2011 in which many of the trends we had forecast became headline news around the world, we are now forewarning of an even more tumultuous year to come.

While it would give us great pleasure to forecast a 2012 of joy and prosperity  all brought about by the wisdom and benevolence of our fearless leaders  since we are not running for office or looking to profit by gulling the people, we tell it as we see it in our 12 Top Trends 2012.

One megatrend looms on the near horizon. And we forecast that when it strikes, it will be a shock felt around the world. Hyperbole its not! Our research has revealed that at the very highest levels of government this megatrend has been seriously discussed. Read on:

1. Economic Martial Law: Given the current economic and geopolitical conditions, the central banks and world governments already have plans in place to declare economic martial law with the possibility of military martial law to follow.

2. Battlefield America: With a stroke of the Presidential pen, language was removed from an earlier version of the National Defense Authorization Act, granting the President authority to act as judge, jury and executioner. Citizens, welcome to "Battlefield America."

3. Invasion of the Occtupy: 15 years ago, Gerald Celente predicted in his book Trends 2000 that prolonged protests would hit Wall Street in the early years of the new millennium and would spread nationwide. The "Occtupy" is now upon us, and it is like nothing history has ever witnessed.

4. Climax Time: The financial house of cards is collapsing, and in 2012 many of the long-simmering socioeconomic and geopolitical trends that Celente has accurately forecast will come to a climax. Some will arrive with a big bang and others less dramatically but no less consequentially. Are you prepared? And what’s next for the world?

5. Technocrat Takeover: Democracy is Dead; Long Live the Technocrat! A pair of lightning-quick financial coup détats in Greece and Italy have installed two unelected figures as head of state. No one yet in the mainstream media is calling this merger of state and corporate powers by its proper name: Fascism, nor are they calling these technocrats by their proper name: Bankers! Can a rudderless ship be saved because technocrat is at the helm?

6. Repatriate! Repatriate!: It took a small, but financially and politically powerful group to sell the world on globalization, and it will take a large, committed and coordinated citizens movement to un-sell it. Repatriate! Repatriate! will pit the creative instincts of a multitude of individuals against the repressive monopoly of the multinationals.

7. Secession Obsession: Winds of political change are blowing from Tunisia to Russia and everywhere in between, opening a window of opportunity through which previously unimaginable political options may now be considered: radical decentralization, Internet-based direct democracy, secession, and even the peaceful dissolution of nations, offering the possibility for a new world "disorder."

8. Safe Havens: As the signs of imminent economic and social collapse become more pronounced, legions of New Millennium survivalists are, or will be, thinking about looking for methods and ways to escape the resulting turmoil. Those on-trend have already taken measure to implement Gerald Celentes 3 Gs: Gold, Guns and a Getaway plan. Where to go? What to do? Top Trends 2012 will guide the way.

9. Big Brother Internet: The coming year will be the beginning of the end of Internet Freedom: A battle between the governments and the people. Governments will propose legislation for a new authentication technology, requiring Internet users to present the equivalent of a drivers license and/or bill of health to navigate cyberspace. For the general population it will represent yet another curtailing of freedom and level of governmental control.

10. Direct vs. Faux Democracy: In every corner of the world, a restive populace has made it clear that its disgusted with politics as usual and is looking for change. Government, in all its forms  democracy, autocracy, monarchy, socialism, communism  just isn’t working. The only viable solution is to take the vote out of the hands of party politicians and institute Direct Democracy. If the Swiss can do it, why cant anyone else?

11. Alternative Energy 2012: Even under the cloud of Fukushima, the harnessing of nuclear power is being reinvigorated by a fuel that is significantly safer than uranium and by the introduction of small, modular, portable reactors that reduce costs and construction time. In addition, there are dozens of projects underway that explore the possibility of creating cleaner, competitively priced liquid fuels distilled from natural sources. Plan to start saying goodbye to conventional liquid fuels!

12. Going Out in Style: In the bleak terrain of 2012 and beyond, Affordable sophistication will direct and inspire products, fashion, music, the fine arts and entertainment at all levels. US businesses would be wise to wake up and tap into the dormant desire for old time quality and the America that was.

Gerald Celente is founder and director of The Trends Research Institute, author of Trends 2000 and Trend Tracking (Warner Books), and publisher of The Trends Journal. He has been forecasting trends since 1980, and recently called The Collapse of '09.

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