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James Dale Davidson has seen the future and it is not a happy place.
Frightened suburban residents are fleeing for the relative safety of rural America. Violence has overtaken whole cities where streets crack and bridges crumble.
The United States has plummeted into a deep depression. Financial markets have collapsed. Prices have fallen in the worst deflation since the 1930s. City governments are insolvent. The federal government, strung out on debt, finds its very existence in question.
It will all happen, he says, within this decade.
It's not the picture painted by most economists. But Davidson has been on target before -- he predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union back in 1987. And, in the context of what many deem an overvalued stock market, soaring government debt and persistent reports of gang violence, his apocalyptic views of financial collapse and civil disorder have a certain logic -- and are drawing a substantial audience.
"I'm the voice of common sense and moderation," Davidson says.
Davidson looks it, wearing a suit, sitting in his office, nine floors up at 2 North Charles St. in downtown Baltimore.
But then you begin to notice the little things. His desk, for instance, is covered with press clippings, some taped together, all speculating on the potential conspiracies that underlie the Whitewater controversy that has President Clinton by the throat.
Lining the wall are copies of the latest book Davidson co-wrote with Lord William Rees-Mogg, a member of the British House of Lords: "The Great Reckoning" -- subtitled, "Protect Yourself in the Coming Depression."
KEEP WATCHING
The latest edition of his newsletter, Strategic Investment, also lies on the desk, warning that a "deeper stage of depression that we have been watching for is coming."
Davidson, a Maryland investment advisor and entrepreneur, has firmly established himself among a small clique of doomsayers.
At a time when gross domestic product is growing and most economists forecast recovery, this group of Cassandras scornfully brush aside such talk, calling this a temporary recovery that will soon be undone by underlying forces too long ignored.
His book ranks among similar titles that have appeared over the last few years: "Surviving the Great Depression of 1990"; "How to Profit from the Next Great Depression"; "Bankruptcy 1995:...