Professor Elam

Weekend Sept 26, 2015

You better stop, look around
Here it comes, here it comes, here it comes, here it comes
Here comes your nineteenth nervous breakdown
Oh, who's to blame, that girl's just insane
Well, nothing I do don't seem to work
It only seems to make the matters worse. Oh, please

 

19th Nervous Breakdown, the Rolling Stones

This might be a good time to dust off your copy of Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

no kidding

The news is plain to see, the job of the socionomist is to point out the how the change in mood is causing a change in event. I don't know when I have seen so many 'tipping point' news items in one newspaper edition.  We are in an 18 year period of economic stagnation and emotional ups and downs. This is reflected in that obvious social mood barometer of the stock market, now undergoing its third high since Year 2000. Such periods are exclusionary. Groups move apart, former public figures suffer unexpected defeats (not to the socionomist but to the general public) And is the news ever exclusionary!

To wit from this Weekend Edition of the WSJ

Boehner Departure Shakes GOP

Or as Donald Trump would say,You're Fired

Utah Sen Robert Bennett defeated 2010

Indiana Sen Richard Lugar out in 2012

Majority Leader Eric Cantor beat in his own primary in 2014

Jeb Bush falls from 15% to 9% unable to gain voter traction

Boehner steps down and plans to leave before his term is out 2015

Both Republican houses are unable to restrict Obamacare, the Iran deal of Planned Parenthood

bottom line, throw the bums out

Obama tells Xi to stop cyber-theft, uh good luck with that one

Iraq says no to foreign troops

700 killed in Mecca stampede

And the exclusionary process does not stop with politics consider that

Michigan State President Lou Anna Simon wants to explore what club sports (lacrosse for example) would look like without NCAA involvement, shades of Sierra Madre, we don't need no stinking' NCAA

WSJ lead Editorial calls on rebellious Republicans to put up or shut up, nice tone to that eh?

and rather than step back inhale and re consider regulatory over reach, yep

Regulators Plan Tougher Car Tests - nothing like doubling down on a dubious program that is engendering cheating already

Hillary tweet causes NASD Biotech index to drop 5.1% this week, is this Hillary's idea of income re distribution, shaving the price of biotech shares?

Pat Sajak tweets a new world wide thermostat has been developed to stop climate change

Currencies Go from Bad to Worse Malaysian ring at 15 year low, MSCCI Emerging Market Currency Index at six year low, Brazilian real is worst performer of any major global currency so far this year

For a look at what is why the Malay ringit  is down check out this post on Robin Wong's blog, caution, graphic four letter language in the protests

In an Enron like parallel (of course stocks are topping now as they did in year 2000) Dan Neil notes that 

VW Lost Its Moral Compass  in Quest for Growth (you know like GM, Toyota, Enron, Worldcom, Tyco, et all)

Dan notes that none of the 1,000 diesel specialists in Michigan how VW accomplished this without urea injection (the parallel being only one analyst at Merrill asked that about Enron and Enron got him fired)

and in a final Casablanca moment as we noted earlier this week, VW CEO Winterkorn is 'shocked' such behavior could occur, he was not aware of any wrong doing, as though that is a proper CEO talking point

_____________________

As we say this is surely a tipping point, world mood is quickly turning sour as one group turns on another, ISIS is tossing people off rooftops and killed nineteen women captives just this week

Stocks have already dropped 1,000 Dow points August 24, Shanghai SEEC is down 44% just since June, and mood has worsened since,  

The Bottom Line, this is just the sort of Tipping Point Gladwell was writing about

Socionomics is instrumental in providing clues about what is going to happen rather than what has happened.