Who's Pulling The Market’s Strings?

 | Jun 03, 2020 12:28AM ET

Civil unrest is not impacting the market right now, as much as one might think it should. Someone said today that the market has no conscience. Yet, the market is behavioral.

Currently, the market sees the riots as a one-off event, unlikely to persist for any length of time. However, if we look at the last time in the US history we had similar unrest, we must look at the 1960's.

The 60’s were laced with protests against the Vietnam War, racism, women’s rights and marijuana use. The Chicago Seven, a group of political activists, were arrested for their antiwar activities in August 1968.

The Black Panthers, a political organization founded in 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, challenged police brutality against the African American community. Hoover, head of the FBI at the time, declared them the worst threat to society.

Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968. More protests and riots ensued. Afterwards, an expansion of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, was passed to prohibit discrimination concerning the sale, rental, or financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, and sex.

Furthermore, the legality of marijuana drug use entered politics.

Pres. Richard Nixon replaced President Johnson in 1968.The Tax Act’s mode of federal cannabis prohibition became illegal in 1969 with the case Leary v. United States, which found that purchasing a marijuana tax stamp amounted to self-incrimination.

Nixon saw pot prohibition as a way to destroy the antiwar left, and target minorities. Although The Shafer Commission found in 1972 that cannabis was as safe as alcohol, Nixon squelched that report.

We also saw Women’s Rights and ERA bring another avenue of protests.

But many would say that the apex of the era came in 1970 when 13 unarmed Kent state students were shot by the National Guard, resulting in the deaths of four white students.