Tuesday March 8, 2011
One of our main themes here is the identification of a New Civil War in the US. This is the War between the right to work states i the South, still in relatively good shape, and the train wreck unfolding in places like Wisconsin, Michigan (Detroit looks worse, much worse, than Nagasaki, but no one dropped a bomb on Detroit), you name it.
Anger is evident in the comments of this lady in Wisconsin. She was laid off from the Harley plant and now splits her time waitressing between two bars. She is not felling any sympathy for the government workers now being asked to contribute more to their health care and pensions. She of course has neither.
Socionomics holds that mood determines what happens in a society. Mood changes first, here is a perfect example. The mood of both the govt union member and our new bar maid is getting more extreme. This hostility will eventually take us from bull to bear markets. But you say, neither of these folks are hedge fund managers so what. Well the Tunis Street Vendor who set himself on fire was probably not political until that moment either. But now North Africa is on fire. I saw this same extreme as DIck Durbin refused to cut more than .28% of the Federal Budget this weekend.
ONe feature of revolt during times of negative social mood is that all incumbents are thrown out. Consider that the US has gone from Dem to Repbulican to Dem in the White House, and now the current occupant's ratings equal the others. Here on Texas Independence Day a secessionist movement demonstrated at the State Capitol. No doubt no one takes them seriously. But as we have suggested, such movements look for the right opportunity, will this group support never ending unemployment payments to workers in Northern States with chronically high structural unemployment? Expect a cry to secede from supporting such payments by taxpayers.
Note this is becoming a world wide movement from Venezuela to the Basque region of Spain to North Africa to, yes, China.
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