 By Alan Hall & Euan Wilson | Excerpted from the March 2011 Socionomist |
In this fascinating short article, socionomists Alan Hall and Euan Wilson explain how social mood affects U.S. sugar consumption. Here is a very brief excerpt of the March 2011 piece.
In the September 2004 issue of The Elliott Wave Financial Forecast, Pete Kendall observed slowing sales and declining stock prices for “a wide range of sugary products and caffeine-laced drinks that were refreshment mainstays during the long bull market”:
The socionomic implications … are clear: the sugar rush and caffeine buzz that kept consumers tuned in to the high-energy and social imagery of the bull market are subsiding because they are incompatible with bear market psychology.
Mark Galasiewski expanded on Kendall’s ideas in a report titled, “Some Socionomic Snapshots,” published in the January 2007 issue of The Elliott Wave Theorist. Galasiewski charted a positive correlation between stock prices and per-capita sugar consumption and forecasted further decline:
When the data for 2005 and 2006 are released, we expect they will show that sweetener consumption rebounded somewhat along with the stock market. But after that, as the major bear market that began in 2000 resumes a downward trend, we expect to see the decline in sweetener consumption continue.
As our updated chart shows (Figure 1), that is exactly what happened.
Figure 1
Read the remainder of this two-page article to learn how recent trends in carbonated drink production and drink container sizes also reflect prevailing social mood. Discover how Starbucks catered to the public’s shifting attitude with its introduction of the 916 ml ‘Trenta’ – its largest drink size that holds more than the average human stomach.
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Most economists, historians and sociologists
presume that events determine society’s mood. But socionomics hypothesizes
the opposite: that social mood regulates the character of social events. The
events of history—such as investment booms and busts, political events,
macroeconomic trends and even peace and war—are the products of a naturally
occurring pattern of social-mood fluctuation. 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 society’s aggregate mood, that news is irrelevant to social
mood, and that financial and economic decision-making are fundamentally different
in that financial 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 © 1999, by Robert Prechter;
(2) the introductory documentary History's
Hidden Engine; (3) the video Toward
a New Science of Social Prediction, Prechter’s 2004 speech before
the London School of Economics in which he presents evidence to support his
socionomic hypothesis; and (4) the Socionomics Institute’s website, www.socionomics.net.
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The Socionomist enables you to see trend-shaping waves of social mood, as reflected by the stock market — and capitalize on them. The June issue looks at phases of social mood and features a “Research Roundup,” which highlights five academic studies that shine a light on important aspects of socionomic theory. Mood Riffs topics include “quiet luxury,” loneliness, the Writers Guild strike and efforts by countries to trade in currencies other than the U.S. dollar. Read the June issue when you become a Socionomics Premier Member.
