In February 0f 2009, while on the Glenn Beck show, trend forecaster Gerald Celente was asked to comment on global events and extraordinary times in which we live. His response should have been a wake up call.

[It will be] Like nothing we’ve ever seen in our lifetime or I would say anyone’s life time.

Since then we’ve seen not billions, but trillions upon trillions of dollars committed to bank bailouts, toxic asset purchases, stock market liquidity infusion, so-called job creation programs, tax breaks and mortgage modifications. The Obama administration has taken every opportunity to tout these programs as evidence of success.

On the one hand, we’re told that the recovery, albeit slower than expected, is in full swing. We were also told in late 2008 that this was a recession. Any discussion about the possibility of another Great Depression was taken off the table by government, media and mainstream economists. The idea that America could enter another depression was simply not possible, and anyone who spoke of such thing was a fear mongering pessimist.

Yet, it seems that we were on the very brink of complete melt-down in 2008. So close, in fact, that administration officials now claim the President’s policies are responsible for avoiding the very scenario that was completely denied as a possibility three years ago:

The American economy was falling off the cliff in the fall of ’08 and the first months of this administration. And he put in place the most creative, the most forceful set of economy measure we have ever done as a country. And because of that, we’ve preented a second Great Depression and the economy has now been growing for more than a year and a half.

-Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Meet the Press, July 10, 2011

At the same time Mr. Geithner explains to us how saddling us with trillions more in debt and expanding government intervention into every aspect of our lives has avoided depression, he warns that things are going to remain tough for the average American. His words are eerily reminiscent of Gerald Celente’s 2009 forecast:

I think it’s going to take a long time still. This is a very tough economy. And I think for a lot of people it’s going to be – it’s going to feel very hard, harder than anything they’ve experienced in their lifetime now, for some time to come.

The consensus among the experts who didn’t see the 2008 recession until six months after it was official and then told us the economy would be back to normal by 2011 are the same people who are telling us that a Great Depression has been avoided.

As in 2008, the Great Depression debate is off the table.

For those paying attention, however, it should be clear that the next Great Depression was signaled by the 2008 economic and equities market crash, and the last three years of policy initiatives have done nothing to fix the fundamental problems that caused the crisis in the first place.

An argument could be made that things are actually much worse now – on a number of fronts including the economy, jobs, real estate, deficit spending, national debt, and cost of living – than they were three years ago.

If you’ve haven’t guessed, it is very likely that the reason Americans are going to experience times tougher than anything they have experienced in their lifetimes is because our nation is fully engrossed in the next Great Depression. There is no better example of this than then our 21st century version of soup lines:

It’s real. It’s happening right now. Prepare yourself financially, mentally, spiritually, and physically – because it’s only going to get worse.