Last week we got the following communication from JL, a subscriber/resident of Manhattan’s east side: “First time in memory that you had two major shootings on back-to-back days in Manhattan (Harlem then the Village). NYC residents have pretty much become ever more complacent about crime and quality of life (and constant higher real estate prices) over the past 20 years. Looks like it is ‘game over.’”
Combined with outraged claims of racism surrounding three indicted NYC police officers and a rising incidence of crime in big cities across the country, I had to agree that the shootings might be socionomically significant. I didn’t post anything, however, because two shootings does not a constitute a trend. But the contagious quality of the latest “Madison Square Garden Basketbrawl” has all the elements of a kick-off event in a good old fashioned, Big Apple bear market.
First, there’s the forum in which the spontaneous display of mass hostility occured, a high school basketball game at Madison Square Garden. Unlike more bearish sporting fare, basketball is not by its nature a violent game. In bearish times, however, “Basketball and The Bull Market,” a December 1996 issue of The Elliott Wave Theorist noted that basketball tends to produce more physical contact and fights -- on and off the court. In fact, our forecast for the next bear market stated, “Eventually, fans will turn hostile, and fights will be common.” No site is more central to the history of basketball than Madison Square Garden.
Times Square is another New York City landmark that EWI has previously shown to be highly reflective of the prevailing trend in social mood. Consider, for instance, its transition from a sleazy, crime-infested porn capital at the end of the last bear market in the 1970s to the entertainment and financial capital of the world today.
Now consider the progress of the “riot,” from the basketball court to the stands, Times Square and out through the NYC subway system, like an electric current flashing from one socionomic hot spot to the next. In the life of the city, it was a small thing. But, in time, it may well prove a significant harbinger. A New York City native points out that fights at high school basketball games were common back in the 1960s. This is certainly true as one article points out that high school basketball was banned from the Garden from 1964 to 1989. Of course, this is coincident with a bear market that ran from 1966 to 1982 in inflation-adjusted terms. As the Socio Times entry of July 20, 2005 noted, "New York City is social mood lightning rod. One way or another, a new direction in the trend always finds a way to express itself – usually quite immediately and forcefully – in the Big Apple."
Our New York sources also notes that back in more bearish times, it became common practice to separate the opposing crowds and post police between them. From 1989 through the 2007 city championships, however, the advance in social mood obviously reduced the enmity as games returned to the Garden and precautions against potential melees slackened. Sunday’s donnybrook suggests a come back now. New restrictions may curtail confrontations, but as the bear market emotions that fueled the explosion intensify, they will undoubtedly find other avenues of expression. As JL notes, “I live smack in the middle of it all. Like the overall tone of politics/wall street/media/entertainment, culture in NYC is currently bouncing between the optimism engendered over the past 20 years and small but growing signs of discord. I suspect this will play out in slow motion over the next 3 years or so, and surely real estate prices will reflect the situation on the ground.” |
