By Alan Hall | Excerpted from the June 2019 Socionomist
A December 2017 Socionomist special report said that after years of smooth sailing for the largest tech companies, lawmakers and the broader public had begun to turn a baleful eye on businesses like Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon. The report, titled “A Socionomic Review of 2017,” observed that attacks on successful corporations had reached beyond technology companies to firms such as opioid maker Purdue Pharma. The June 2019 Socionomist provides an update on the public’s perception of successful corporations. Following are excerpts from that issue:
In the past, society’s appetite for knocking big, successful companies off their profitable pedestals has been a useful harbinger of the trend of social mood—and consequently, the stock market. That appetite seems to be growing again.
On March 26, a Vox story about the Sackler family, who made billions selling opioids, reported that three institutions—Britain’s National Portrait Gallery, the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Tate museum in London—have refused millions in gifts from the family.
Art museums are not the only entities taking aim. The May 2000 issue of The Elliott Wave Theorist described the timing of landmark attacks, such as antitrust suits, on successful corporations. The trend generally begins to appear as the positive mood trend matures and then accelerates after the positive mood extreme. Most attacks occur soon after significant peaks in stock prices. Conciliations and abandonments of such attacks often occur soon after significant lows in stock prices.
The attacks against Purdue don’t yet rise to the level of antitrust action, which a recent New York Times article described as “the nuclear bomb of regulatory policy.” But the article said that Washington is warming to the antitrust idea.
Calls for antitrust action are heating up, too. Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich wrote, “Facebook, Google and Amazon are the New Robber Barons. Let’s bust them up.”
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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.
