General Growth Properties, Inc., the second largest mall operator in the USA has filed for bankruptcy protection. General Growth has a debt of over $27 billion and operates more than 200 properties, 158 of which will fall under the bankruptcy filing. According to Reuters, this is the largest real estate bankruptcy filing in history.
While it may come as a surprise, regular readers of SHTFplan.com knew this was just a matter of time, as Trends Research Founder Gerald Celente forecast a real estate collapse that would begin right around this time:
Who’s going to rent all this vacant retail space? This country’s been way overbuilt for a long time. This is where the real credit crisis is. It’s going to make the sub-prime look like peanuts because no one is going to rent this empty vacant space. You’re going to see ghost malls start springing up all over America.
This may be the starting point for what Mr. Celente calls the “Collapse of ’09.”
Necessity is the mother of all invention, isn’t it?
Gerald Celente talks about the collapse of ’09, but how is this collapse different from any other economic collapse when the cause has always been the same: A misappropriation of value.
If Celente’s predicted economic collapse has begun, then perhaps the next paradigm shift has begun as well. A reappropriation of value is imminent, but the question is, will we put it into the same things as before?
Just yesterday I visited the local health clinic supported by the gay community and other non-profit means. All around us there were shiny retail storefronts, extravagant bars and bling-bling cars.
And here I was in this run-down, rinky-dink clinic built in the 1970s. I kept asking myself how it was that the retail joints across the street were more valuable than this place?  And this is just a microcosm of America in my opinion.
We have overvalued the valueless and depreciated the value of the most valuable: our wellness as a human collective. Where would everyone be without the education, health and human services that keep people well enough to be doing the “people” things we do?
I’m sure we could turn these vacant, “valueless” spaces into something quite valuable, albeit a bit less bling-bling, but truly valuable to the human purpose nonetheless.
Peter Holy
123FeelBetter.net
Make today a life-changing event!
I totally agree with you….well said