Top 11 Trends of 2011

Wake-Up Call: Top 11 Trends of 2011 
 - Trends Research Institute

After the tumultuous years of the Great Recession, a battered people
may wish that 2011 will bring a return to kinder, gentler times. But
that is not what we are predicting. Instead, the fruits of government
and institutional action, and inaction, on many fronts will ripen in
unplanned-for fashions. Trends we have previously identified, and
that have been brewing for some time, will reach maturity in 2011,
impacting just about everyone in the world.

1. Wake-Up Call - In 2011, the people of all nations will fully
recognize how grave economic conditions have become, how ineffectual
and self-serving the so-called solutions have been, and how dire the
consequences will be.

Having become convinced of the inability of leaders and know-it-all
"arbiters of everything" to fulfill their promises, the people will do
more than just question authority, they will defy authority. The
seeds of revolution will be sown .

2. Crack-Up 2011 - Among our Top Trends for last year was the "Crash
of 2010."  What happened? The stock market didn't crash. We know.
We made it clear in our Autumn Trends Journal that we were not
forecasting a stock market crash, the equity markets were no longer a
legitimate indicator of recovery or the real state of the economy.
Yet the reliable indicators (employment numbers, the real estate
market, currency pressures, sovereign debt problems) all bordered
between crisis and disaster.

In 2011, with the arsenal of schemes to prop them up depleted, we
predict "Crack-Up 2011": teetering economies will collapse, currency
wars will ensue, trade barriers will be erected, economic unions will
splinter, and the onset of the "Greatest Depression" will be
recognized by everyone...

3. Screw the People - As times get even tougher and people get even
poorer, the "authorities" will intensify their efforts to extract the
funds needed to meet fiscal obligations. While there will be
variations on the theme, the governments' song will be the same: cut
what you give, raise what you take.

4. Crime Waves - No job + no money + compounding debt = high stress,
strained relations, short fuses. In 2011, with the fuse lit, it will
be prime time for Crime Time.  As Gerald Celente says, "When people
lose everything and they have nothing left to lose, they lose it."

Hardship-driven crimes will be committed across the socioeconomic
spectrum by legions of the on-the-edge desperate who will do whatever
they must to keep a roof over their heads and put food on the table...

5. Crackdown on Liberty - As crime rates rise, so will the voices
demanding a crackdown. A national crusade to "Get Tough on Crime"
will be waged against the citizenry. And just as in the "War on
Terror," where "suspected terrorists" are killed before proven guilty
or jailed without trial, in the "War on Crime" everyone is a suspect
until proven innocent...

6. Alternative Energy - In laboratories and workshops unnoticed by
mainstream analysts, scientific visionaries and entrepreneurs are
forging a new physics incorporating principles once thought
impossible, working to create devices that liberate more energy than
they consume.

What are they, and how long will it be before they can be brought to
market? Shrewd investors will ignore the "can't be done" skepticism,
and examine the newly emerging energy trend opportunities that will
come of age in 2011...

7. Journalism 2.0 - Though the trend has been in the making since the
dawn of the Internet Revolution, 2011 will mark the year that new
methods of news and information distribution will render the 20th
century model obsolete.

With its unparalleled reach across borders and language barriers,
"Journalism 2.0" has the potential to influence and educate citizens
in a way that governments and corporate media moguls would never
permit. Of the hundreds of trends we have forecast over three
decades, few have the possibility of such far-reaching effects...

8. Cyberwars - Just a decade ago, when the digital age was blooming
and hackers were looked upon as annoying geeks, we forecast that the
intrinsic fragility of the Internet and the vulnerability of the data
it carried made it ripe for cyber-crime and cyber-warfare to flourish.

In 2010, every major government acknowledged that Cyberwar was a clear
and present danger and, in fact, had already begun. The demonstrable
effects of Cyberwar and its companion, Cybercrime, are already
significant, and will come of age in 2011. Equally disruptive will
be the harsh measures taken by global governments to control free
access to the web, identify its users, and literally shut down
computers that it considers a threat to national security...

9. Youth of the World Unite - University degrees in hand yet out of
work, in debt and with no prospects on the horizon, feeling betrayed
and angry, forced to live back at home, young adults and 20-somethings
are mad as hell, and they're not going to take it anymore. Filled
with vigor, rife with passion, but not mature enough to control their
impulses, the confrontations they engage in will often escalate
disproportionately.

Government efforts to exert control and return the youth to quiet
complacency will be ham-fisted and ineffectual. The Revolution will
be televised .. blogged, YouTubed, Twittered and...

10. End of The World! - The closer we get to 2012, the louder the
calls will be that the "End is Near!"  There have always been sects,
at any time in history, that saw signs and portents proving the end of
the world was imminent. But 2012 seems to hold a special meaning
across a wide segment of "End-time" believers.

Among the Armageddonites, the actual end of the world and annihilation
of the Earth in 2012 is a matter of certainty. Even the rational and
informed that carefully follow the news of never-ending global crises,
may sometimes feel the world is in a perilous state. Both streams of
thought are leading many to reevaluate their chances for personal
survival, be it in heaven or on earth...

11. The Mystery Trend.. will be revealed upon publication of the
Trends Journal in mid-January.  
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =