Are Americans on the verge of a frenzy to downsize, and will moldy oldies make yet another comeback in 2006?
MSNBC's Tucker Carlson recently welcomed Gerald Celente, director of the Trends Research Institute, to 'The Situation,' to discuss what products and trends Americans may favor in 2006.
To read an excerpt from their conversation, continue to the text below. To watch the video, click on the "Launch" button to the right.
TUCKER CARLSON: So, what is this-you have in your report a prediction, but sounds like more than a prediction, that television and the way we watch is going to change dramatically in the next year.
JOE CELENTE, DIRECTOR, TRENDS RESEARCH INSTITUTE: Well, each year we come out with the top trends of the next year, "The Trends Journal."
CARLSON: Yes.
CELENTE: And what we're saying, this is a big year in 2006. We call it online TV. There's a lot of talk now about how, you know, the multimedia is going to go beyond iPods and cell phones.
CARLSON: Right.
CELENTE: Well, take at this time other way. You're taking everything off the World Wide Web and now you're putting it onto the wide screen of your house. That's where the big convergence trend is going to change everything. And there's the technology already, TiVo has it.
CARLSON: Right. But how will that change-I mean, what will that mean for the average person coming home after work? How will his TV viewing habits change?
CELENTE: I can watch anything in the world from anybody. Because the cost of production goes way down. Content becomes king.
Right now you have the major broadcast corporations that are in control of distribution.
CARLSON: Right. Right.
CELENTE: Now distribution becomes-it's free. You got your-you're on the Web. You have a production facility. You're putting out content. There is no FCC. It's worldwide.
And I want to listen to a Danish station, bam, it's there. I want to hear music from around the world I tune in whatever. I have a World Wide Web of viewer broadcast quality. You see that's what we were talking about back in the dot com era.
CARLSON: Right.
CELENTE: The convergence, the technology wasn't ready yet. Now it's ready. So 2006 is going to be the beginning of that.
CARLSON: And it's all on demand.
CELENTE: Yes. It's what you want.
CARLSON: I'm for that. I'm totally for that.
CELENTE: So you have your remote and you're sitting there. You don't have 500 channels; you have 500,000 channels.
CARLSON: Yes. That kind of blows my mind. A trend that you address a lot, cultural, pretty broad cultural trends. This confused me. You say that younger people will continue to look backwards for their cultural idols.
CELENTE: Actually, I'm been forecasting trends at Trends Research Institute 25 years. In modern history there's never been a generation that's looking to the past to find its future. For example, I'm a Baby Boom generation.
CARLSON: Right.
CELENTE: We weren't looking back to Glen Miller and Benny Goodman and Louis Armstrong. It was The Beatles. It was The Doors. It was Elvis Presley, Fats Domino.
The next generation, Generation X, they weren't looking back to Fats Domino, Elvis Presley for their music. They weren't looking back to that generation for their politicians. They weren't looking back for that generation for their culture. They were inventing their own.
This generation, the millennium generation, born between 1980 and 1995, they're looking back. From Dylan to Lennon, from Kennedy to King, they're looking back to the past to find their future.
They don't have it. They don't have the musicians with the chops.
They don't have the cultural idols that are alive today.
CARLSON: They see America as...
CELENTE: Better then than now.
CARLSON: Right. Exactly.
CELENTE: The future-the past is better than the future. And there was a soul then. There was a feeling of a soul. Right now there's a trend that we call Deadmerica. America has lost its soul. And you look around the country. I'm old enough to remember.
CARLSON: Lost its soul?
CELENTE: Well, I'll tell you how. New York has turned corporate. Again, I'm a New Yorker, a Bronx New Yorker. I know what it looked like.
New Orleans is nevermore. Hollywood's lost its tinsel. And Miami's hot but doesn't have the heat. Look at the movie business. They have to bring back the monkey for the third time.
CARLSON: You know why? Do you know why?
CELENTE: There's nothing else.
CARLSON: Because America is moving to Orlando and Phoenix and Tempe and Corpus Christi. It's just, you know, the population centers are changing.