February 2013

6 Swearing on Twitter predicts

Iranian protests
9 Book Review: Mood and
Markets, by Peter Atwater
A GATHERING
STORM
Could We Really
Be Headed Tere Again?
The Socionomist A monthly publication designed to help readers understand and prepare for major changes in social mood
PO Box 1618 Gainesville, GA 30503 USA
770-536-0309 800-336-1618 FAX 770-536-2514
A publication of the Socionomics Institute
www.socionomics.net 2013
SOCIONOMICS
INSTITUTE
The SocionomistFebruary 2013
1
A Gathering Storm
Aided by Extreme Negative Mood, Political Developments in Greece
Bear a Striking Resemblance to Those in Germany Before World War II
By Chuck Thompson
Nazi salutes.
Praise for Adolf Hitler.
Swastika-like banners.
A rising political party known as Golden Dawn is resurrecting such practices, all hallmarks of Hit-
lers Third Reich, in modern-day Greece, which has suffered a dramatic, fve-year stock market
decline.
The 1989 Elliott Wave Theorist special
report noted that bear markets are fertile
ground for political shifts away from indi-
vidual liberty:
In the formalization of the negative
mood within a bear market, one or
more of the new parties is likely to
represent ideals inimical to individual
liberty (such as socialist, racist, fascist
or fundamentalist). In some cases, such
as Russia in the teens, Germany in
the thirties, China in the late forties,
Cambodia in the seventies, and Iran
in the late seventies, such parties have
achieved power.
Likewise, Golden Dawn is riding a
wave of extreme negative mood, and its
tactics are reminiscent of those employed by Hitler
and his National Socialist German Workers Party.
Golden Dawn capitalizes on fear and anger. It pro-
motes xenophobia. And, like Hitlers workers party, it
targetsand seems to appeal tothe young.
Golden Dawn Exploits Fear and Anger, Which Are
Emotions Connected to Negative Mood
From 1927 to 1932, Germany suffered a disastrous
stock market decline, falling 73% over fve years (see
Figure 1). Six million people were unemployed, and
the government was weak. Germany suffered outside
fnancial pressure in the form of reparations required
by the Versailles Treaty and consequences of its in-
volvement in World War I.
1
Adolf Hitler argued that the German government
betrayed its people by signing the Versailles Treaty.
2

He promised that if he were elected, the nation would
stop paying the reparations.
3
The position appealed to
the German peoples anger and helped the Nazi leader
become chancellor in January 1933.
Modern-day Greece has experienced an even larg-
er fve-year decline than 1920s-1930s Germany did,
falling 88% since 2007, and the country has suffered a
debt crisis. As a condition for bailouts aimed at help-
ing Greece recover, the European Union has imposed
tough austerity measures. The Greek government has
implemented the measures. Meanwhile, the deepening
negative social mood has fueled protests against the
measures.
Forget the Payments: Nikolaos Michaloliakos, head of the Golden Dawn party,
has called for Greece to renege on its debt and disregard its bailout commitments.
S
o
u
r
c
e
:

C
B
S

N
e
w
s
/
A
s
s
o
c
i
a
t
e
d

P
r
e
s
s
The SocionomistFebruary 2013
2
Nikos Zydakis, editor of
the daily newspaper Kathi-
merini, says Greece is in an
economic depression like that
experienced by Germany in
the 1930s.
4
More than 90% of
Greek households have experi-
enced income reductions, with
the average drop 38%. Unem-
ployment in Greece now stands
at a record 26.8% and is nearly
60% among Greeces young
adults. In November the Greek
Parliament imposed tax hikes
and spending cuts demanded
by creditors. Supermarket sales
in the country declined by 500
million euros ($669 million)
last year,
5
and people are burn-
ing wood because the price of
electricity has risen and taxes
on heating oil have increased.
6
Zydakis says the nation is
cracking. When that happens,
all the barriers to extremism
fall.
4
Like the Nazi Party a cen-
tury ago, Golden Dawn is push-
ing for Greece to cease its for-
eign paymentsin this case, to
renege on its debt and its bail-
out commitments. As Golden
Dawns leader, Nikolaos Mich-
aloliakos, has said, his party will
fght to free Greece from the
global loan sharks. And he has
condemned the Greek traitors
whom he says are responsible
for his nations fnancial woes.
7
The party has also prom-
ised to cancel household
debt for the unemployed and
low-wage earners. Such posi-
tions have worked in Golden
Dawns favor. EurActiv.com
says the party has manipu-
lated a weak Greek state and
disastrous austerity manage-
ment by European bureaucrats
to become, according to recent
polls, the third most popular
political party in the country.
8
Figure 1
The SocionomistFebruary 2013
3
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Nazi
propaganda stressed to both civilians at home and to
soldiers, police offcers, and non-German auxiliaries
serving in occupied territory themes linking Soviet
Communism to European Jewry, presenting Germa-
ny as the defender of Western culture against the
Judeo-Bolshevik threat, and painting an apocalyp-
tic picture of what would happen if the Soviets won
the war.
10
Xenophobia is a Key to Golden Dawns Propaganda
Just as it capitalized on anger over reparations,
Germanys Nazi Party also used fear of outsiders
to its advantage. Its core philosophies included
racism, anti-Semitism and anti-Bolshevism, all of
which were espoused in Hitlers book, Mein Kampf.
The Nazis also published the fiercely anti-Semitic
newspaper, Der Sturmer. The US Holocaust Memo-
rial Museum writes:
Adolf Hitlers rhetoric appealed to despondent
Germans who were desperate for a better life. And,
as Figure 1 shows, the German stock market rallied
strongly after Hitler came to power in 1933.
However, instead of experiencing a fowering
culture and prosperity, Germanys fascist, authori-
tarian regime plunged the nation into a long war. In
the November 1999 issue of The Elliott Wave Theo-
rist, Robert Prechter noted that,
major wars virtually always erupt during or
immediately following C waves of Elliott wave
corrections above Cycle degree. The Revolution-
ary War took place during wave (c) of the Grand
Supercycle bear market from 1720 to 1784. The
Civil War broke out shortly after the end of wave
c of the Supercycle bear market from 1835 to
1859. World War II started during wave c of the
Supercycle bear market (in infation-adjusted
terms) from 1929 to 1949. In every case, a rising
social mood eventually brings an end to the war.
The policies of Hitlers regime refected and then
rigidly imposed philosophies espoused during the
bear market. In effect, the regime successfully insti-
tutionalized the extreme negative mood that was in
play when Hitler came to power. One result was the
dramatic growth of the Hitler Youth even during the
positive mood period, with membership rising from
2.3 million in 1933 to 7.7 million in 1939,
9
the year
that participation in the organization became man-
datory. World War II began in 1939, six years into
the German stock market rally.
In his 1985 report, Popular Culture and the Stock
Market, Prechter noted that if negative mood takes
root throughout much of a society and reaches ex-
treme proportions, society, or a body representing
it, often undertakes collective action to institutional-
ize existing policies, which then become more en-
trenched during the positive mood period that follows.
In some cases, mood extremes allow actions that im-
pose structural rigidity on the society. And, because
it takes time to mobilize machinery and play out the
consequences of the actions taken at the mass mood
extreme, the effects of this institutionalization may
continue to be felt for a long time. Prechter wrote:
As an example, the collective mood in Germany
in 1933 was so negative that its expression re-
sulted in the election of Adolf Hitler. Although the
underlying public mood was changing toward
the less negative from that date forward, the
consequences of that popular action took twelve
years to play out because the representatives of
the negative popular mood gained such great
political power. The collective mood in the Unit-
ed States also reached a negative extreme in
1933, the year the depression hit its depths. As
one manifestation, enrollment in and disruptive
activity by the Communist Party in the United
States also peaked in the 1930s. In contrast to
the German experience, however, those forces
never achieved political control, so the improv-
ing mood was allowed to express itself in the
years which followed.
Alan Hall further developed this idea in his
Socionomic Nolan Chart. For details, see the two-
part study at http://my.elliottwave.com/Publications/
SOC/2010/1004/1004SOC.pdf
For Germans, the Rising DAX Became a Missed Opportunity
The SocionomistFebruary 2013
4
Studies says Golden Dawn blames unauthorized immi-
grants for stealing jobs from Greek citizens. Intensely
negative social mood has resulted in escalating suspi-
cion, fear, hatred and violence toward immigrants:
Golden Dawn citizen groups, created to engage
pure Greeks in the protection of Greek citizens
from crimes committed by immigrants, have been ac-
cused of chasing, stabbing, and seriously injuring im-
migrants and anyone who looks foreign or non-Greek
. Golden Dawn members have also been accused
of breaking the windows of houses or shops owned
by immigrants, and beating them . In the summer
of 2012, Golden Dawn members, dressed in black T-
shirts and holding Greek fags, reportedly visited an
open-air market and smashed every stall belonging to
persons they believed to be foreigners .
16
Frontex, an agency that monitors the EUs external
borders, says more than 55,000 illegal immigrants were
detected in Greeces Evros border region in 2011a
17% increase compared to 2010.
17
Golden Dawn has
proposed the construction of minefelds between Tur-
key and Greece to prevent further unauthorized migra-
tion into the country.
16
Such views are unquestionably
extreme. Yet, they are gaining traction in Greecebe-
cause of the nations extreme negative mood.
Similar to the Nazis a century ago, Golden Dawn
began running candidates long before the nations
mood turned negativein Greeces case, all the way
back to June 1994. Also as with the Nazis, Golden
Dawn achieved success only after the nations stock
market had crashedin this case in November 2010,
Hitlers Nazi party promoted a na-
tional community to Germans. But not
everyone was welcome in this new society:
Exploiting pre-existing images and
stereotypes, Nazi propagandists por-
trayed Jews as an alien race that fed
off the host nation, poisoned its cul-
ture, seized its economy, and enslaved
its workers and farmers.
11
At frst, the Nazi Party had only lim-
ited success. It won just 3% of the vote in
December 1924, when mood was waxing
positive and the German stock market
was rising. But in November 1932, after
the markets huge 73% decline and in the
midst of the Great Depression, Hitlers
Nazi Party suddenly captured 33% of the
votemore than any other party.
1
That year, a Ham-
burg schoolteacher named Louis Solmitz wrote about
Hitler, How many look to him with touching faith as
their helper, their savior, their deliverer from unbear-
able distress.
12
After he became Germanys chancellor, Hitler be-
gan a series of legal actions that stripped Jews of their
rights. By 1938, Jews in Germany could no longer vote
and had to carry identifcation cards.
13
That same year,
German Storm Troopers and Hitler Youth instigated
the Night of Broken Glass, in which synagogues and
Jewish-owned homes and businesses were plundered
and destroyed. Thirty-thousand Jews were arrested
and sent to concentration camps, and in the next seven
years, millions more would suffer the same fate.
14
Last year in Greece, Artemis Matthaiopoulos was
among the frst-ever Golden Dawn party members to
join the nations parliament. Matthaiopoulos is the
former bass player for the punk band Pogrom, whose
songs include Auschwitz. The tune was named for
the former prison camp where the Nazis killed an esti-
mated one million Jews.
The bands most popular song is Speak Greek or
Die, an anti-immigrant diatribe that says:
You come to our country, you dont have any work;
Youre starving, you bums, and you eat children;
You speak Russian, you speak Albanian, but now
you will speak Greek.
Speak Greek or die, speak Greek or die.
15
Greece has become the host country for a huge
number of illegal aliens. The Center for Migration
War on Immigrants: These men were photographed during a June 2012 press
conference organized by the United Against Racism and Fascist Violence Movement.
They said their wounds were the result of an attack by members of Golden Dawn.
S
o
u
r
c
e
:

F
o
x

N
e
w
s
/
A
s
s
o
c
i
a
t
e
d

P
r
e
s
s
The SocionomistFebruary 2013
5
a few weeks before Hitler came to power, the
organization had more than 107,000 members.
Membership soared afterward, reaching 2.3 mil-
lion by the end of 1933.
19
The Hitler Youth focused on two age
groups: 10-14 and 14-18.
21
In 1938, Hitler de-
scribed what he viewed as the benefts of reach-
ing young Germans at such early ages:
These boys and girls enter our organizations [at]
ten years of age, and often for the frst time get
a little fresh air; after four years of the Young
Folk they go on to the Hitler Youth, where we
have them for another four years And even
if they are still not complete National Social-
ists, they go to Labor Service and are smoothed
out there for another six, seven months And
whatever class-consciousness or social status
might still be left the Wehrmacht [German
armed forces] will take care of that.
20
The Jewish Virtual Library notes that once
Germany was invaded during the war, mem-
bers of the [Hitler Youth] were taken into the
army at ever younger ages, and during the Battle
of Berlin in 1945, they were a major part of the Ger-
man defenses.
21
Like the Nazi Party, Golden Dawn goes to great
lengths to appeal to youth. On February 2, the British
newspaper The Independent said Golden Dawn was us-
ing social media, the Internet and youth clubs to reach
patriotic youths as they watch their countrys sover-
eignty being eroded by foreign creditors. The paper
interviewed a number of young Golden Dawn support-
ers, including a 16-year-old boy who said that he and
others like him fear they wont be able to fnd jobs
because of all those illegal immigrants. A 16-year-
old girl related that an African immigrant had robbed
her cousin. The paper said she was attracted to Golden
Dawn because of its Zorro-style savior tactics, refer-
ring to the masked hero who defends fellow citizens
against villains and oppressive public offcials.
22
Last
year, another British newspaper, The Guardian, wrote
about a 29-year-old unemployed laborer who voted for
Golden Dawn candidates because they help deal with
the immigrants.
4
According to The Independent, Golden Dawns ef-
forts to reach the young are paying off:
Grassroots mobilization is its main recruitment tech-
nique, and the party is actively involved in neighbor-
hood initiatives, especially in areas that saw a rise of
after a 71% plunge. Party leader Michaloliakos was
elected to the Athens City Council. Then in 2012, with
social mood still in a negative trend, Golden Dawn
won 6.9% of the national vote and 18 seats in the
Greek Parliament.
16
That same year, an emboldened Michaloliakos de-
nied the existence of gas chambers in Nazi death camps
during World War II. There were no ovens, no gas cham-
bers, its a lie, he said. Auschwitz, what Auschwitz?
18
Golden Dawn is Making Strides Among the Young
One of Hitlers key objectives was to indoctrinate
the nations youth in Nazi philosophies. In 1920 he au-
thorized the formation of a Nazi Party youth league.
19
The US Holocaust Memorial Museum says the
Nazi Party considered youth a special audience for
its propaganda messages:
These messages emphasized that the Party was a
movement of youth: dynamic, resilient, forward-
looking and hopeful. Millions of German young peo-
ple were won over to Nazism in the classroom and
through extracurricular activities.
20
In its infancy, the Hitler Youths reach was limited
to Munich, and in 1923 it had just over 1,000 mem-
bers. In 1925, membership totaled 5,000, and fve
years later it was 25,000. But by the end of 1932, just
Winning the Hearts of Youth: Golden Dawn has mounted a tireless and
successful campaign to reach young people like this supporter, who is
attending a pre-election rally in Athens.
S
o
u
r
c
e
:

B
u
s
i
n
e
s
s

I
n
s
i
d
e
r
/
A
F
P
The SocionomistFebruary 2013
6
ers rise to power came as a surprise to Ernst Hess, his
former commander in World War I, and other mem-
bers of his regiment:
[Hess] would often relate to the surprise expressed
by Hitlers former comrades when they heard that the
maverick politician had been in their ranks. What,
Hitler? He was in our unit? We never even noticed
him. Hess then used to explain that Hitler had had
no friends within the regiment, never said a word to
anyone and had been an absolute cipher.
23
Similarly, The Center for Migration Studies ex-
presses surprise that Greece is now embracing a par-
ty such as Golden Dawn. The Center points out that
Greece fought against Germany and Italy in World
War II, suffered its own fascist military junta (1967-
74) and has a long history of emigration to Germany,
the Americas and Australia.
16
Furthermore, in 2000
Greece joined the 26-nation Schengen Area, where
there are common rules on asylum and internal bor-
ders are abolished, allowing for passport-free move-
ment. Such a set of circumstances would not seem to
favor the partys rise, the Center points out.
The success of Golden Dawns effort to persuade
a growing number of Greeks to adopt its extreme phi-
losophies will depend on the continuation or worsen-
ing of Greeces current mood picture. Mood will also
determine whether Greeces government can carry
out its plan to solve the nations debt crisis, main-
tain order and avoid losing its power to parties at the
fringes of the political spectrum.
Citations on Page 11
crime and strong infux of migrants. Graffti of
Greek fags, nationalist slogans, and signs that bear
a resemblance to swastikas have started appearing
around schools. The widespread anger that Greeks
have experienced since the beginning of the economic
crisis has been channeled to children and is shaping
their psyche, experts say. Child psychologist Amalia
Louizou explains that in such an environment, chil-
dren are the easiest recipients of extremist messages.
22
Conclusion
In Chapter 14 of The Wave Principle of Human
Social Behavior, Prechter provided a list of polari-
ties that are common to negatively trending mood.
Many of these polarities, including exclusion, anger,
fear, protectionism and a desire to separate from oth-
ers, were evident in Germany before Hitler came to
power, and they are evident in Greece today. And just
as the rhetoric of the Nazi Party accommodated these
expressions in Germany in the 1930s, the rhetoric of
Golden Dawn is doing so in Greece now.
Socionomics teaches that political extremists
come to power near major market bottoms because
the bottoms mark extremes in negative social mood.
This is when perpetrators are the most angry and dis-
satisfed and potential defenders are the most preoccu-
pied, as Pete Kendall wrote in the March 1995 issue
of The Elliott Wave Theorist. Thus, an angry German
electorate was disposed to empower an angry, vindic-
tive leader, according to the April 2005 issue of The
European Financial Forecast. If Hitler had never
been born, another would have been chosen.
Mood, not a stellar record of performance, was
the engine that drove Hitlers success. The Nazi lead-
When Emotions Ran High:
Study Finds that Twitter Swearing
Predicted Iranian Protests
By Euan Wilson
Last year, The RAND Corporation released a
report on Irans Green Revolution and its relationship
to messages on Twitter. Their fascinating finding:
Surprisingly, [Iranian] peoples use of swear
words on Twitter tracked more closely than any
other indicator did with events and protests on the
ground, and it did the best job of forecasting when
protests would occur (italics added).
News coverage, protests, and shifting public
favor of one candidate or another all performed less
well at predicting protests, according to the RAND
study.
The SocionomistFebruary 2013
7
RANDs report, Using Social
Media to Gauge Iranian Public
Opinion and Mood After the 2009
Election, was authored by Sara
Beth Elson, Douglas Yeung, Parisa
Roshan, S.R. Bohandy and Alireza
Nader. The authors used Linguistic
Inquiry and Wordcount, (LIWC,
pronounced Luke) to examine
language use in Iranian tweets.
They looked at emotion-laden
words, such as swearing, anxiety
words and positive-emotion words.
The authors then charted each of
these expressions and compared
them with major events in Iran
in the months following the June
2009 election. They found that the
incidence of swearing did indeed
predict protests in the country.
It is an intriguing result, but is
it socionomic? To find out, we com-
pared the authors swearing graph
to the Iranian stock market. We ob-
serve that negatively trending mood
predates both the swearing increas-
es and the protests that followed
(see Figure 1).
For instance, consider July
30, 2009. On that day, the Iranian
government announced plans to
crack down on mourners protesting
the violent death of a protestor.
Despite the government action,
swearing continued to decline
through the immediate period. Why? Because
Iranian mood, as illustrated by Irans stock
Social media have developed into an impor-
tant communications mechanism. News media
regularly cite trending topics on Twitter. Data
miners use Facebook posts to create maps on
everything from server cluster failures to NFL
playoff team preferences. And social media, par-
ticularly Twitter and Facebook, played critical or-
ganizational roles in such recent events as the
Arab Spring, protests in Russia and Irans bitterly
contested June 12, 2009 presidential election.
What Social Media Means to Social Mood
But as we reported in the January 2011 issue
of The Socionomist, social media are also emerg-
ing as a critical metric of collective emotions (and
to a degree, social mood).
Because mood influences the expression of
emotion, trends in emotional expression can at
times serve as corroborating sociometers, giv-
ing social scientists, governments and individu-
als a window into what social events may lie just
ahead.
Figure 1
market, was trending positively. A similar
situation occurred around October 7. A huge
The SocionomistFebruary 2013
8
Maintaining the anonymity of protesters was
a major concern during Irans Green Revolution.
Many protestors took advantage of the fact that
Twitter can be used without a fixed Internet con-
nection. A prepaid phone can be used to send
a text message to a Twitter account, which then
posts the tweet anonymously.
Many sympathizers around the world rushed
to help protect the identities of Iranians tweet-
ing about the protests on the Internet. A global
request to change ones Twitter location and
timestamp to Tehran trended strongly at the start
of the protests in June 2009. The effect, in the
RAND Reports words, [multiplied] the number
of Twitter users who appeared to be in Iran, [and]
these appeals helped protect those Iranian users
Is Social Mood Transmitted Across the World?
who actually were in the country by making it far
more difficult for state operatives to seek out and
detain individuals tweeting against the establish-
ment.
The RAND study by necessity included mes-
sages posted by the non-Iran-based Tweeters,
yet significant inflation of the database did not
undercut the metrics predictive capability. We
dont know which Twitter users changed their
location and timestamps: libertarian activists,
expat-Iranians or everyday sympathizers. One
thing is certain: their common attribute was an
interest in and desire to contribute to events in
Iran. This is important, because it suggests that
proximity may not be a critical determinant of so-
cial mood transmission.
decline in swearing occurred despite an
unprecedented crackdown on protests. Again,
throughout that period, Iranian social mood was
on the rise.
Also consider the weeks of October 18-24
and November 15-21. During those periods, rates
of swearing hit their study lows. Note that these
two periods came on either side of the highest
point in Iranian stock prices for the entire nine-
month span. Now consider the end of the chart,
here in late February: Swearing is again on the
decline, and mood, seen through stock prices,
is simultaneously reaching its highest point
in over three months. Finally, consider the
peaks in swearing. All occurred at lows in the
market, indicating that mood was predominantly
negative.
Why is this happening? Socionomic theory
posits that increasingly negative social mood
impels feelings of fear, anger, sadness and
frustration. Swearing, in the aggregate, is an
emotional response to those feelings. It is a
conscious attempt to alleviate the uncomfortable
emotions produced by negative, unconscious
social mood.
A Socionomic Hypothesis and Closing Thoughts
The story in the above sidebar suggests, at least
partially, that mood among Irans Green Revolution
sympathizers was mirroring that of Tehran. Despite
the fact that additional tweeters were posing as
Iranians, the peaks and nadirs in aggregate swearing
coincided with the Iranian markets. Does this
mean that people watching and participating in the
Iranian Twitter efforts from afar reflected Iranian
social mood via their profane tweets? Maybe.
In the instance of Twitter users, the joining of
a cause or group is an easy proposition. There is
a group for everyone on Twitter. There is also a
readiness in groups to accept newcomers, and from
there, herding takes over.
These findings add further weight to the
emerging conclusion amongst some members
of academia that Twitter can be used to track the
aggregate emotional state of societies. The findings
also lend yet more support for the idea that trends
in emotional expression can serve as sociometers.
This study raises another interesting question:
Is geography a boundary for social mood in the
electronic age? At least in this particular case, the
answer is no.
The SocionomistFebruary 2013
9
Book Review:
Peter Atwaters Moods and Markets
By Euan Wilson
At the heart of Peter Atwaters Moods and
Markets, a 2012 book exploring socionomic theory,
is the new idea of Horizon Preference.
Atwater explains: It is as if our minds have been
fitted with variable lens goggles that automatically
manage our peripheral vision in three dimensions: a
physical horizon, a time horizon, and a relationship
horizon, where our vision in all three dimensions is
based on our level of confidence. Where we are
and how we see and deal with the world around us
is based on our mood along a continuum from me,
here, now to us, everywhere, forever.
Essentially, at lows in social mood, peoples
worldviews narrow. Perspectives become focused
on immediate, individual survival. But as social
mood trends more positively and the urgency of
survival fades, worldviews become inclusionary
and draw in more people, places and cooperative
plans for the future.
Horizon Preference is an interesting new way
to visualize what people are feeling and how they
relate to society. Optimism and pessimism offer clues
about the status of social mood and thus the markets
as well. From there, Atwater says, our awareness can
help inform sound investment decisions.
Where social mood is and how we perceive it
through our Horizon Preference is important, says
Atwater, because opportunity is everywhere. In
the us, everywhere, forever times, business is
all about collaboration, expansion, and service.
Growth is easy and expected, and business owners
and investors do well to take
advantage. And during the me,
here, now moments, business
ideas are poised to thrive if
they address those negative-
mood-driven needs. This is a
classic socionomic point, one
Prechter frequently brings up:
You cant do anything about
the direction of social mood,
but you can make decisions to weather or take
advantage of its changes. Atwaters later chapters
outline just how you can do this.
Atwater also discusses other classic socionomic
points through the lens of the Horizon Preference
idea. He provides some fresh takes on market
peaks and bubbles, bottoming indexes, higher
education, housing, corporate accounting and
more. His descriptions of the
phases of a bottoming market
are particularly interesting;
youll definitely want to know
the difference between the
hoarding phase and the sacrifice
phase, for example. Both are
decidedly negative but differ
dramatically in timing and result. With insights
such as these, Atwater has added to the utility of
socionomic theory.
We recommend Moods and Markets as a welcome
addition to the burgeoning body of socionomic
literature. To order the book, visit www.elliottwave.
com/wave/Peter-Atwater-Moods-and-Markets.
Peter Atwater
Where social mood is and how we perceive it through our
Horizon Preference is critically important, Atwater writes,
because opportunity is everywhere.
The SocionomistFebruary 2013
The Socionomist is designed to help readers understand and anticipate waves of social mood. We also present the latest essays
in the eld of socionomics, the study of social mood; we anticipate that many of the hypotheses will be subjected to scientic
testing in future scholarly studies.
The Socionomist is published by the Socionomics Institute, Robert R. Prechter, Jr., president; Mark Almand, director. Alan Hall,
Ben Hall, Matt Lampert and Euan Wilson contribute to The Socionomist. Chuck Thompson, editor.
We are always interested in guest submissions. Please email manuscripts and proposals to Chuck Thompson via
institute@socionomics.net. Mailing address: P.O. Box 1618, Gainesville, Georgia, 30503, U.S.A. Phone: 770-536-0309.
All contents copyright 2013 Socionomics Institute. All rights reserved. Feel free to quote, cite or review, giving full credit. Typos
and other such errors may be corrected after initial posting.
For subscription matters, contact Customer Service: Call 770-536-0309 (internationally) or 800-336-1618 (within the U.S.).
Or email customerservice@socionomics.net.
For our latest offerings: Visit our website, www.socionomics.net, listing BOOKS, DVDs and more.
Correspondence is welcome, but volume of mail often precludes a reply. Whether it is a general inquiry, socionomics commentary or a research idea, you
can email us at institute@socionomics.net.
Most economists, historians and sociologists presume that events determine societys mood. But socionomics hypothesizes the opposite: that social mood
determines the character of social events. The events of historysuch as investment booms and busts, political events, macroeconomic trends and even peace
and warare the products of a naturally occurring pattern of social-mood uctuation. Such events, therefore, are not randomly distributed, as is commonly
believed, but are in fact probabilistically predictable. Socionomics also posits that the stock market is the best available meter of a societys aggregate mood,
that news is irrelevant to social mood, and that nancial and economic decision-making are fundamentally different in that nancial decisions are motivated
by the herding impulse while economic choices are guided by supply and demand. For more information about socionomic theory, see (1) the text, The Wave
Principle of Human Social Behavior 2011, by Robert Prechter; (2) the introductory documentary Historys Hidden Engine; (3) the video Toward a New
Science of Social Prediction, Prechters 2004 speech before the London School of Economics in which he presents evidence to support his socionomic hy-
pothesis; and (4) the Socionomics Institutes website, www.socionomics.net. At no time will the Socionomics Institute make specic recommendations about
a course of action for any specic person, and at no time may a reader, caller or viewer be justied in inferring that any such advice is intended.
A Rare Moment in History:
You Can Be Present at the Creation
Scientists and academic researchers are in the early
days of a transformation in the accepted understanding of
human behavior.
Driving the change are big data, social media, stagger-
ing computer power and studies in felds such as neurol-
ogy, behavioral fnance and psychology.
Yet more than any other cause, the most important
factor of this transformation actually amounts to what has
been missing over the past 15 or so yearsa satisfying,
elegant theory that explains non-linear collective behavior.
Meet socionomics. More than any other line of in-
quiry, the study of social mood holds the promise of an
elegant solution that the world has until now been without.
Have we answered all the questions? No, but again
these are the early days. As with groundbreaking disci-
plines of the past, socionomics today is a train that is just
pulling out of the station.
Put simply: This is one of those rare moments in his-
tory when you can be Present at the Creation. You can
hear, frst-hand, from the scholars and researchers doing the
transformational work and from the professionals and prac-
titioners who are putting the theory into action right now.
Attend The 2013 Social Mood Conference. Youll join
a gathering of minds unlike any other. From the Emmy
Award-winning producer and CEO of Minyanville.com to
the man who is responsible for Gallups groundbreaking
World Poll, this years lineup features many of the bright-
est luminaries in fnance and behavioral research.
Speakers will include Philip Z. Maymin, assistant pro-
fessor of fnance and risk engineering at NYU-Polytech-
nic Institute; Michelle Baddeley, behavioral economist at
Gonville and Caius College and the Faculty of Economics,
University of Cambridge; and Tobias Preis, associate pro-
fessor of behavioral science and fnance at Warwick Busi-
ness School.
And then theres Robert Prechter, who introduced so-
cionomic theory and will be on hand throughout.
Dont miss the chance to take advantage of this histor-
ic opportunity. Dont be left behind. To reserve your seat,
visit www.socialmoodconference.com.
Meet the Founder: Robert Prechter speaks to attendees at last
years Social Mood Conference. Prechter will speak and will also
be present throughout the 2013 conference, set for April 13 at
Georgia Tech in Atlanta.
Advertisement
The SocionomistFebruary 2013
11
CITATIONS
A GATHERING STORM?
1
Hitler comes to power. United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum. Retrieved from http://www.ushmm.org/out-
reach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007671
2
Beer Hall Putsch (Munich Putsch). United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved
from http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.
php?ModuleId=10007884
3
Reparations: Nazi Germany. Spartacus Educational.
Retrieved from http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/
GERreparations.htm
4
Henley, J., & Davies, L. (2012, June 18). Greeces far-
right Golden Dawn party maintains share of vote. The
Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/
world/2012/jun/18/greece-far-right-golden-dawn
5
Dabilis, A. (2013, February 7). Austerity cuts Greek
household income 38%. Greek Reporter. Retrieved
from http://greece.greekreporter.com/2013/02/07/
austerity-cuts-greek-household-income-38/
6
Greece: Pictures of Greeks scrambling for food sparks
fresh anger over austerity measures (2013, February
6). The Hufngton Post. Retrieved from http://www.
hufngtonpost.co.uk/2013/02/06/pictures-of-greeks-
scrambling-for-food-hunger_n_2630617.html
7
Qena, N. (2012, May 6). Greece Elections 2012: Nikolaos
Michaloliakos, extreme right leader, warns Greek trai-
tors. The Hufngton Post. Retrieved from http://www.
hufngtonpost.com/2012/05/06/greece-elections-
2012-nik_n_1490883.html
8
Mokhtar, H. (2013, February 5). Rise of Golden Dawn:
A presage of doom? EurActiv. Retrieved from http://
www.euractiv.com/general/rise-golden-dawn-presage-
doom-analysis-517582
9
Nazi conspiracy and aggression, Volume 1 and Chapter
VII, Means used by the Nazi conspirators in gaining
control of the German state (part 46 of 55). The Nizkor
Project. Retrieved from http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/
imt/nca/nca-01/nca-01-07-means-46.html
10
Nazi propaganda. United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum. Retrieved from http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/
en/article.php?ModuleId=10005202
11
Dening the enemy. United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum. Retrieved from http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/
en/article.php?ModuleId=10007819
12
Making a leader. United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum. Retrieved from http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/
en/article.php?ModuleId=10007817
13
Kristallnacht: Background and overview. Jewish Virtual
Library. Retrieved from http://www.jewishvirtualli-
brary.org/jsource/Holocaust/kristallnacht.html
14
Kristallnacht: A nationwide pogrom, November 9-10,
1938. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Retrieved from http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.
php?ModuleId=10005201
15
Greece welcomes newest mp: A Nazi punk musician
(2012, July 26). Ynet News. Retrieved from http://
www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4260704,00.
html
16
Greeces Golden Dawn and the anti-immigrant platform
(2013, February 4). Center for Migration Studies.
Retrieved from http://cmsny.org/2013/02/04/greeces-
golden-dawn-and-the-anti-immigrant-platform/
17
Q&A: Schengen Agreement (2012, March 12). BBC
News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/
world-europe-13194723
18
Neo-Nazi chief denies gas chambers existed (2012, May
15). IOL News. Retrieved from http://www.iol.co.za/
news/world/neo-nazi-chief-denies-gas-chambers-
existed-1.1297376
19
The Hitler Youth. Holocaust Education and Archive
Research Team. Retrieved from http://www.holocaus-
tresearchproject.org/holoprelude/hitleryouth.html
20
Indoctrinating youth. United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum. Retrieved from http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/
en/article.php?ModuleId=10007820
21
Hitler Youth. Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved from
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/
hitleryouth.html
22
Savaricas, N. (2013, February 2). Greeces neo-fascists
are on the rise and now theyre going into schools:
How Golden Dawn is nurturing the next generation.
The Independent. Retrieved from http://www.indepen-
dent.co.uk/news/world/europe/greeces-neofascists-
are-on-the-rise-and-now-theyre-going-into-schools-
how-golden-dawn-is-nurturing-the-next-genera-
tion-8477997.html
23
Mauss, S. (2012, July 4). Hitlers Jewish commander and
victim. Jewish Voice From Germany. Retrieved from
http://jewish-voice-from-germany.de/cms/hitlers-jew-
ish-commander-and-victim/