2011

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  [Article] Democracy is Under Attack; Will it Survive the Social Mood Decline?

  Expressions of the large-degree negative social mood trend now seem to be accelerating.
   
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  [Article] Privacy Legislation is Curtailing Internet Use

  China already blocks Facebook, Twitter and YouTube — yet they’re taking further steps to ensure “a greater degree of comfort that everything is under control.” Discover what that means, in the context of new manifestations of Internet censorship in the U.S. and U.K.
   
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  [Article] ‘Financial Repression’ is Reemerging

  The potential for decentralized, uncontrollable information systems and economies represents a huge threat to governments. As the largest debt bubble in modern history unwinds, socionomists expect to see many and varied attempts to dial up the repression … and an intensification of the inevitable backlash.
   
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  [Article] The Destructors

  In Chapter 14 of The Wave Principle of Human Social Behavior, Robert Prechter noted the tendency for positive social mood to impel the desire to build and for negative mood to impel the desire to destroy.
   
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  [Article] WikiLeaks is on Trial

  On May 11, a federal grand jury in Virginia began hearing testimony against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for disclosing diplomatic and military secrets. Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists and a national security expert says the case is a part of a much broader crackdown by the Obama administration. He writes, “By every available measure, the level of domestic intelligence surveillance activity in 2010 increased from the year before, according to a new Justice Department report to Congress on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.”
   
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  [Article] Higher Tuition: Is it Finally “Enough”?

  Includes the latest developments in the education bubble and student loan debt.
   
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  [Article] Are Crowds Wise—or Mad?

  “The wisdom of crowd effect” does exist — as long as a crowd’s members do not interact. As soon as members know what other members think, they cease to act independently. They begin to follow what the group does, even to their detriment.
   
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  [Article] Arabia’s “Days of Rage” Reflect Its Stock Markets

  Consider the following terrorism-related events: Bin Laden’s fatwa announcement, bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the U.S.S. Cole bombing and the attacks on September 2011. What do they have in common? They ALL occurred at lows in Egypt’s Hermes stock index. The article gives you an eye-opening chart and analysis of what the “Arab Spring” says about mood – and the likely path of terrorism — in the Middle East now.
   
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  [Article] Bin Laden Exits Near a Top

  Newsweek’s cover in March 2009 declared that “Radical Islam is a Fact of Life.” Yet less than one year later — in a drastic change of tone — Newsweek’s cover stated, “How Bin Laden Lost the Clash of Civilizations: The Untold Story of the Triumph of Muslim Moderation.” Discover how and why socionomics anticipated this reversal in Islamist extremism – back when the first cover published. Also learn the one fatal error Newsweek made with its predictions.
   
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  [Article] Rising Smaller Degree Social Mood Puts Tea Party on Ice

  The Tea Party emerged in 2009 with a bang. The grass-roots movement sponsored protests across dozens of U.S. cities and gained enough steam to claim mid-term election victories in Congress. Now polls show that the percentage of people with a favorable view of the Tea Party has plummeted, and critics have labeled the movement a “spent force” that “was never as popular as most think.” How did both the Tea Party go from accolades to insignificance in such a short period of time?