The image is from the August 8 issue of Newsweek. It ran under the headline: "WHEN BEARS ATTACK!" The last time bearish images burst on the scene, EWFF called the outburst an "immediate expression" of the downturn in social mood and the Dow responded with another 18 months of falling stock prices. Could the latest spate of bear sightings within the culture be a similar signal? We certainly think so. The story of Timothy Treadwell is a particularly interesting one to surface at the current point in time because when he was killed in 2003 The Elliott Wave Financial Forecast noted an important parallel to modern day investors with the following comment: "The current attitude of investors calls to mind the filmaker who rose to fame documenting his close encounters with bears. Timothy Treadwell was a hit on the talk show circuit and developed 'a cult following among bear lovers for his willingness to live among bears.' An Alaska newspaper reported October 8 that the love affair came to an abrupt end earlier this month when the bear lover was eaten by his subjects. Nothing against bear lovers, but investors today are similar to Treadwell; they have lost all respect for the reality that the market is a wild beast that can and will turn on shareholders in a heartbeat."
Here's what one recent review from the August 19 issue of the Oregonian had to say about Grizzley Man:
"Are all of us on this planet -- humankind and animalkind -- meant to live together in harmony as God's children? Or is the natural state of things 'chaos, hostility and murder'? Big, abstract questions for which there are no ready answers. But 'Grizzly Man,' a documentary by the great German director Werner Herzog, ponders these issues with gripping immediacy.
Because for Herzog and his subject, the self-made naturalist Timothy Treadwell, these conundrums weren't the fodder for some genteel philosophical debate. They were literally matters of life and death. Treadwell insists repeatedly that bears are deserving of treatment equal to that due humans and can live side by side with mankind. It's amazing stuff: Treadwell the amusingly overeager bear-man vs. Herzog the cold-eyed chronicler of human excess. It's often gorgeous: the pristine landscapes and up-close images of bear behavior that Treadwell captured can't fail to make you swoon.
In the end, though, it's Herzog's voice we hear loudest, tinged with weary knowing . There are borders in this world, he reminds us, and respect for them isn't only good manners, it's good common sense."
With their drive into hedge funds and other even riskier investment vehicles, investors have been as insistent as Treadwell was that they can happily cohabitate with a bear market in social mood. We are as convinced as ever that this is a dangerous state of affairs, and that, in time, common sense and a cold-eyed assessment of human excess will carry the day. As a matter of fact, the recent raft of bears in advertisements, stories and a full-length film documenting Treadwell's famously fatal obsession, which EWFF linked to investors' psychology of denial back in 2003, is a sure sign that the situation is grippingly immediate, once again. As we said in March 2001, investors need to heed the warnings of the Yosemite park rangers: "The bear is going to win." |
