• 288 days Will The ECB Continue To Hike Rates?
  • 288 days Forbes: Aramco Remains Largest Company In The Middle East
  • 290 days Caltech Scientists Succesfully Beam Back Solar Power From Space
  • 690 days Could Crypto Overtake Traditional Investment?
  • 695 days Americans Still Quitting Jobs At Record Pace
  • 697 days FinTech Startups Tapping VC Money for ‘Immigrant Banking’
  • 700 days Is The Dollar Too Strong?
  • 700 days Big Tech Disappoints Investors on Earnings Calls
  • 701 days Fear And Celebration On Twitter as Musk Takes The Reins
  • 703 days China Is Quietly Trying To Distance Itself From Russia
  • 703 days Tech and Internet Giants’ Earnings In Focus After Netflix’s Stinker
  • 707 days Crypto Investors Won Big In 2021
  • 707 days The ‘Metaverse’ Economy Could be Worth $13 Trillion By 2030
  • 708 days Food Prices Are Skyrocketing As Putin’s War Persists
  • 710 days Pentagon Resignations Illustrate Our ‘Commercial’ Defense Dilemma
  • 711 days US Banks Shrug off Nearly $15 Billion In Russian Write-Offs
  • 714 days Cannabis Stocks in Holding Pattern Despite Positive Momentum
  • 715 days Is Musk A Bastion Of Free Speech Or Will His Absolutist Stance Backfire?
  • 715 days Two ETFs That Could Hedge Against Extreme Market Volatility
  • 717 days Are NFTs About To Take Over Gaming?
How Millennials Are Reshaping Real Estate

How Millennials Are Reshaping Real Estate

The real estate market is…

How The Ultra-Wealthy Are Using Art To Dodge Taxes

How The Ultra-Wealthy Are Using Art To Dodge Taxes

More freeports open around the…

Zombie Foreclosures On The Rise In The U.S.

Zombie Foreclosures On The Rise In The U.S.

During the quarter there were…

Socionomics Institute

Socionomics Institute

Socionomics Institute

Socionomics is a field of study deriving from the hypothesis that social mood motivates the character of social action.

Contact Author

Elliott Wave International

Elliott Wave International

Elliott Wave International

Elliott Wave International (EWI) is the world's largest market forecasting firm. EWI's 20-plus analysts provide around-the-clock forecasts of every major market in the world via…

Contact Author

  1. Home
  2. Markets
  3. Other

Greece: A Gathering Storm Threatens Europe and America

Nikolaos Michaloliakos has called for Greece to renege on its debt

The similarities between Greece and pre-WWII Germany are striking.

  • Nazi salutes.
  • Praise for Adolf Hitler.
  • Swastika-like banners.

Now, before you write off this warning as a run-of-the-mill, Nazi-name-dropping scare tactic, consider this recent report from the Socionomics Institute, a U.S.-based think tank that studies global trends in social mood. Here's an excerpt from the Institute's February publication of The Socionomist.

A rising political party known as Golden Dawn is resurrecting such practices, all hallmarks of Hitler's Third Reich, in modern-day Greece, which has suffered a dramatic, five-year stock market decline.

From 1927 to 1932, Germany suffered a disastrous stock market decline, falling 73% over five years. Six million people were unemployed, and the government was weak. Germany suffered outside financial pressure in the form of reparations required by the Versailles Treaty and consequences of its involvement in World War I.

Adolf Hitler argued that the German government betrayed its people by signing the Versailles Treaty. He promised that if he were elected, the nation would stop paying the reparations. The position appealed to the German people's anger and helped the Nazi leader become chancellor in January 1933.

Modern-day Greece has experienced an even larger five-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 helping 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 them.

Nikos Zydakis, editor of the daily newspaper Kathimerini, says Greece is in an economic depression like that experienced by Germany in the 1930s. More than 90% of Greek households have experienced income reductions, with the average drop 38%. Unemployment in Greece now stands at a record 26.8% and is nearly 60% among Greece's 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, and people are burning wood because the price of electricity has risen and taxes on heating oil have increased.

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme," goes an old saying attributed to American author Mark Twain. And new research from the Socionomics Institute sees a disturbing pattern of rhymes between modern-day Greece and pre-WWII Germany.

To be sure, market and political developments in Greece will have a significant impact on the future of Europe, the Americas and beyond.

 


Socionomics February Issue - Storm

The Socionomics Institute is an independent research firm devoted to the study of social mood and social action. As a partner to the world's largest market forecasting firm, Elliott Wave International, the Institute puts the most important developing social trends around the world into context with Robert Prechter's socionomic theory, which posits that social mood drives social action (not the other way around).

Read the rest the Institute's new February report to learn more about the developing threats out of Greece. The full report is available for free as part of a special promotion run by the Institute with EWI. Follow this link to read the full February issue of The Socionomist (a $19 value) - for free.

 

Back to homepage

Leave a comment

Leave a comment