The Elliott Wave Principle is one way to evaluate those herding impulses. I mean, we like to think we have computers and all of these things that are so technologically advanced, but if you look at the span of human life, we’re living in a very small section. A hundred years is a microsecond, really. And so it wasn’t that long ago that we were still bashing each other over the head with rocks for fish, you know, and that was a common way of behavior, a common mode of behavior -- accepted. That’s, of course, not accepted as much now. Although there are still people who may prefer to bash each other over the head with rocks, it’s frowned upon to a much greater degree now.

Cory Bortnicker: In terms of how we’re seeing the social mood play out in our day-to-day lives, there was an article in the New York Times recently talking about fashion and what is acceptable behavior in terms of what kind of wealth people are open to displaying today. Is that a symptom of the social mood right now?

Kevin Depew: Well, I think that you can find evidence of the change in social mood in all aspects of popular culture, whether it’s fashion, dining, film, music, all of these things.

Why is it that a certain genre of film is popular at a certain point? Why is it that a certain dining experience, type of experience is popular at a certain point and then recedes later on? Well, that’s driven by social mood. It’s not that all of a sudden people decide, "I’m tired of these glitzy restaurants now, let’s scale down."

No, it’s social mood that determines those things. And one thing that I’ve noticed and I believe will continue to happen is that social mood will darken to the extent that any type of overt display of consumption, so-called "bling," any kind of gaudy display of wealth will be frowned upon.

There are always people who are out there going against the social mood trend. If you have a herd of animals, there are always going to be a couple of animals who are not joining the herd and are off doing their own thing. There are always people who are going to be doing their own thing. Don’t get me wrong.

But in the aggregate, there’s going to be less acceptance of that kind of display of wealth and consumption, the accumulation of things, living in bigger houses. We’ve seen all of these things begin to come together, downsizing in smaller houses, restaurants, you name it.

Cory Bortnicker: Right. And it’s not just extreme luxuries, it’s also things like bottled water, which is something else that you wrote about, that bottled water is a commodity that is now coming under some scrutiny as a result of the darkening social mood.

Kevin Depew: That’s right. The reality is that bottled water has been around for 30 years. It’s not as if somebody, seven or eight years ago said, "Hey, let’s put water in bottles and sell it and rip people off."

No, that’s not the case. These are all things that as social moods darkens, we begin to reevaluate. "Wait, why are we spending this much for water? Is it healthy? Is there something wrong with the bottles?"