« Previous | Main Page | Next »

Openness is one of the key attributes of an inclusionary environment i.e. a bull market. The free flow of information leads to open borders, open markets and wider and wider circles of social interaction and community. In big bear markets, by contrast, the September 1992 issue of The Elliott Wave Theorist pointed out that units of allegiance, the group that people consider to be like themselves, get smaller. “At the peak, there is a perceived brotherhood of men and nations. Even mythical aliens are included in the brotherhood of the universe. During the reduction process in the size of the social unit of allegiance, the 'in group' becomes smaller and smaller, moving from the universe to the world to the nation to the ethnic, religious, regional or sexual group to the city or feudal estate to the family to the individual.”

In terms of information exchange, I would describe it as a move from candor and sharing at highs to "loose lips sink ships" at lows. One area where this trend change is particularly evident is in spy agencies like the CIA and KGB. Because information is so tightly controlled in bear markets, intelligence agencies are larger in size and importance at major lows and irrelevant at highs. Remember back at the all-time highs when they found that cache of top secret documents behind a copy machine in a maximum security nuclear research lab? The documents probably ended up there because much of the urgency about secrecy was gone near the top.

Or how about Wen Ho Lee, the Taiwanese/American scientist at Los Alamos who got in trouble for backing up a file for his own use? Wikipedia says, “Lee's actions, though improper, were not especially unusual.” It’s said that he was singled out for espionage investigations due to his Chinese heritage, but the timeline of his arrest and incarceration suggests the influence of social mood is the overriding factor. He was under suspicion for many months before he was finally arrested in December 1999, a few weeks before the Dow Industrials all-time high.“ He was held without bail in solitary confinement for 278 days until September 13, 2000, when he accepted a plea bargain from the federal government.” Now after a three-year rally in stock prices, guess who just pried $1.6 million out of the U.S. Government and several news agencies: Wen Ho Lee. Ironically, it’s for releasing his name to the public. Lee’s real infraction was getting caught in the switches from a bull to a bear market.

The treatment of secrets goes from irrelevant to extremely important in the transition to a bear market. At the highs, it's not a concern. Old secrets are freely shared. In the late 1990s, there were many revelations about long-held government secrets like what went on behind the Iron Curtain and U.S. experiments on poor blacks. Science, a practice that relies on free and open exchange, thrives in this bull market environment contributing enormous  breakthroughs that facilitate the free flow of information. The Internet is a prime example. One of the all-time great enablers of mass social interaction, it was invented near the peak of Cycle III in 1968, and became a mainstream tool at the end of Cycle V in the 1990s.

Just as science and other advances unlocked seemingly unanswerable mysteries at the end of the last bull market (we even learned the identity of the unknown soldiers), seemingly unchallengable liberties like freedom of the press are already under assault. The article at left illustrates the breadth of the reversal that is now taking place. Not a day goes by in which there is not some new challenge to the media's ability to report the truth as it discovers it. Yesterday’s issue of The New York Times produced two more stories about major efforts to stem the flow of information. One, headlined “Beijing Officials Say Curbs Apply To Foreign Journalists,” says a new law will bring fines to foreign and domestic news media for filing unauthorized stories on outbreaks of disease, natural disasters, social disturbances or “other so-called sudden incidents that officials to be false or harmful to China’s social order.” Another one, “Chinese Discuss Plan to Tighten Rstrictions on Cyberspace,” says Chinese authorities have announced that they will step up efforts to “police and control the Internet.” “The government’s statement of intent is being seen as the beginning of its most ambitious effort yet to rein in high-tech communication.” As EWFF notes in the quote above, there is no mistaking the footprint of a downturn in social mood. The bear’s still just prowling the perimeter of social life, but judging from the size and direction of the footprints, it’s not likely to take the form of a cuddly baby cub.

May 2004, EWFF
There is no mistaking the footprints of a big bear market in the changing social landscape. One of the most prominent changes is the shift away from the permissiveness and feelings of alignment with others to a sudden public fetish for restriction and control. Here’s how The Wave Principle of Human Social Behavior described some of the key traits that create this reactive, bear market craving for regulation and revenge: “A waxing negative social mood appears to correlate with a collective increase in discord, exclusion, unhappiness, anger, opposition, depression, destructiveness and a desire for power over others.” Since January, the papers have been filling up with headlines that describe the major and minor effects of this mass emotional downswing. Suddenly, in totally unconnected sectors of the planet, the perception is that tolerance, efforts to “keep up with the Joneses” and openness have all gone too far and “something needs to be done.” The following news diary shows how fast and deep the latest trend change is snapping into action.

January 13 “Feds Crack Down On ‘Raves’: Prosecutor Pursues Organizers of Parties.” In the late 1990s, raves were a night-life staple. Now they are “widely considered notorious havens for illegal drugs like ecstasy.” Ecstasy is to Cycle V as LSD was to Cycle III in the 1960s. Like LSD, it is a psychedelic that was actually legal at the start of its bull market. “Users report feeling blissed out, energetic and emotionally open and loving.” Ecstasy, which is known as an “empathogen” because of its ability to facilitate empathy, fit perfectly with the bull, but society sees it as downright irritating now.

February 12 “Bush to Crack Down on Nuclear Black Market.” Remember back in 2000 when the world was considered so open and safe that nuclear secrets were turning up behind copy machines at U.S. weapons labs? That view has changed. The U.S. Energy Department has also announced “major steps to improve security including the removal of plutonium and highly enriched uranium from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and other weapons sites.”

March 8 “Crackdown on Cursing Starts.” A year ago, the FCC enforcement bureau ruled that use of the f-word at last year’s Golden Globe awards was not indecent because it was unrelated to a sexual act. But now it says that pop star Bono did, in fact, violate Federal regulations when he accepted his award.

March 10 “Senators Tell Baseball To Crack Down on Steroid Use.” Last October, when the “designer steroid” case hit the papers, EWFF explained that it was “stuck on page 3” because the market was still trending higher. We said, “Look for it to rise toward the front page as the downtrend intensifies.” Following the reversals from early 2004 highs in all three averages, baseball’s steroids problem did, in fact, make it to the front page. Notice, however, that crowds are still making their way out to the ballparks. That’s because stocks are still near their highs. When stocks collapse, the fans will file out and steroids will be cited as a major reason. But the real reason is the anger of fans, which is mostly still to come.

March 23 “Revenge Vowed Over Israeli Attack on Founder of Hamas.” The “unprecedented escalation” of the conflict in the Mideast is perfectly consistent with the long track record of Mideast turmoil, which suffered similar escalations near the downturns of 1929, 1966 and 1973. In the 1990s, it disappeared only to make a dramatic reappearance with the Palestinian riots, which hit in October 2000, right after the start of wave (3) of 1.

April 6 “Barcelona Bans Bullfighting.” Barcelona bans bull market?

April 8 “FCC Fines Clear Channel $495,000 for Making  ‘Alleged Indecent Content.’” What was standard fare for “shock jock” Howard Stern during the bull market has now cost radio stations $500,000 in fines.
“Princeton Plan Seeks To Ease Grade Inflation.” Near the lows of the 1970s, Princeton handed out A’s to about 30% of students. Between 1997 and 2002, the percentage jumped to 45%, and grades below B became relatively rare. As the bear market continues, grade point averages will fall with stocks.

April 9 “Feds Crack Down On Tax Shelters.” Back in 1999, when the Dow’s peak was just months away, The Elliott Wave Financial Forecast noted that property seizures were down 98%, and “IRS agents are turning nice.” This was probably one of the clearest signs that the approaching peak in social mood was likely to stand for years to come. Now, the era of the nice-guy IRS agent is ending. The IRS is beefing up “enforcement” and training its sights on “high-income taxpayers.”

April 11 “Dutch Cannabis Crackdown.” “In an increasingly conservative Netherlands,” drug laws are being drafted that “may bring an end to Amsterdam’s anything-goes reputation.” The Dutch government will propose a ban on the sale of the country’s strong home-grown cannabis. Police have already shut down many of the city’s famous hash bars. “The crackdown has reduced the number of cannabis coffee shops from 2,000 a few years ago to about 700 today.”
“War’s Full Fury Is Suddenly Everywhere.” Several reporters concurred with this assessment from The New York Times: “The atmosphere in Iraq has completely changed. In just a week, a fading guerilla war has exploded into a popular uprising.” The reporter says, “I was left with the question: why now?” A Mideast historian offered a explanation that edged closer to socionomics: “The killing of four American contract workers in Fallujah on March 31 and macabre celebration afterward made extreme violence possible and even invigorating. These examples whip up emotions. Pack mentality can overcome reason and propriety.” The error in this analysis is that it attributes the emotion to the action, when it is the other way around. The killings and the escalating conflict that followed were an expression of a crashing social mood.

April 23 “Louisiana May Ban Low-Slung Pants.” A Louisiana representative who is “tired of catching glimpses of boxer shorts and G-strings over the lowered belt lines of young adults,” has submitted a bill that will punish anyone caught wearing low-riding pants with a fine of as much as $500 or as many as six months in jail, or both. It probably won’t pass (not yet, at least), but the bill clearly expresses a shift away from the permissiveness that reined through the end of the great bull market. “I’m sick of seeing it,” said the bills sponsor. “The community’s outraged.” (As the Dow chuggs lower, we may find out where the term “blue laws” come from.)

April 26 “Patriot Act Popular, Giving Bush an Edge.” This is probably one of the most profound evidences of the potency of the new socionomic trend. Just weeks ago, the Kerry campaign was planning to use the acts intrusion on civil rights as a campaign issue: “But instead of the ideal issue to use against President Bush,” the Democrats have discovered that the public is squarely behind the measure. “In a turnabout, the act suddenly has emerged as a cornerstone of Bush’s re-election campaign.”
“Vengeance is Mined It’s payback time. That’s been the mantra for a variety of movie characters determined to bring justice to an unjust world.” Four vendetta movies, The Punisher, Walking Tall (a remake of the original Buford Pusser revenge flick that came out in February 1973, one month after at the start of the bear market of 1973-1974), Kill Bill Vol. 2 and Man on Fire have come out in just the last four weeks. All four hit it big at the box office, with debuts at No.1 or No. 2.

April 29 “China Orders Banks To Suspend Making Commercial Loans.”
“First Criminal Charges Brought Under New U.S. Anti-Spam Law.” Nobody likes spam, but during the bull market everybody put up with it. Saying it’s “gone too far,” U.S. prosecutors have launched the first volley in what promises to be an ongoing attack on many bull market business tactics.

Bear markets are necessary because they correct the excesses of the preceding rise. At big turns, like the one that began in 2000, they bring a wave of reality that breaks down many of the illusions of the bull market years. By the end of the current bear market, baseball will be back on a level playing field, third graders who can’t read won’t be advanced to the fourth, and the airwaves will be safe for the ears of children. But the sobering process is never smooth because virtually every restriction or call for retribution listed above creates a response by an adversary in the same negative mental state. After Israel assassinated Hamas leader, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, a Hamas official responded, “Words cannot describe the emotion of anger and hate inside our hearts.” When Yassin’s successor was also assassinated on April 18, the headline said, “Hamas Vows ‘Volcano of Revenge.’” The more progress the U.S. forces make in Iraq, the more non-aligned parties join the fight and the more terrorists it creates. Another problem is overzealous implementation: The FCC’s new rulings caused radio stations to pull songs like Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side, which has aired for years without complaint. In this way, even wise and well-conceived bear market reforms and dictates tend to have unintended negative consequences.