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Urip100 is a “bit confused.” He writes:
“In the same month (April 2006), some of your events are typical to the height of a bull market (The Freedom Tower) while others indicate that we are already in a bear market (e.g. CEO's cash in, Women take men's jobs). It seems that at any given time, both kinds of events can be found. In the end, it is the reader's interpretation that decides if a particular indicator should be take "as is" or as a contrarian indicator. The predictive power of such a mixture of indicators is no better than wet tea leaves (or coffee grinds) on the bottom of a cup."

Or to put your question in the framework of today’s item: How can we say the emergence of totalitarian fashions are indicative of an emerging bear market (which is obviously our plan) when we just wrote about the collective desire to erect and occupy “tallest” buildings as an expression of a bull market psychology on Friday? First, we would call your attention to the note we posted under our Freedom Tower comment on Friday; the one that says forecasting the direction of social mood based on the appearance or disappearance of social trends “is not advisable.” The main reason for this disclaimer is that there is a far better mechanism in place for this purpose. The stock market provides all the information we need to read the course of social mood.

But after many years of study, it seems indisputable to us that politics, music, architectural aspirations and virtually all other areas of social interaction wax and wane with the wave pattern. So, it is at least a matter of more than passing interest. In fact, we have shown that confirming our expectations for the market (which we arrive at by way of wave analysis and other technical tools) using the trends in the culture can be an extremely useful exercise. As Bob Prechter has noted, by its very nature there will always be bull and bear market elements battling it out within the culture. But in normally trending phase, one side or the other almost always has the upper hand. In those instance where the warring elements appear to be evenly balanced we try to let history be our guide. The dichotomy that you speak of is a great example. We’ve noticed it ourselves and written extensively on it in recent issues and this site (most recently on March 22). In fact, we actually addressed your question with the following  comment about a prevalence of warring cultural trends back in the November 2003 issue:
When baseball attendance and playoff TV ratings experienced a late-season spike, it was cited internally as a result of the rally in stock prices. This observation was challenged as an example of two-armed socionomics. If the result is positive, an in-house skeptic charged, it’s a consequence of a recent rise in stock prices; when it’s negative, it’s the effects of a longer-term decline. Are we having it both ways? Not at all. To understand why, you have to step back and look more broadly at the prevailing trends. Scan the headlines and one glaring aspect stands out; the current social scene is riven with cross currents… .The effect is very similar to the raucous interplay of social forces that were said to create a “world upside down” in 1969. (For the full quote see Additional References.)

We have written extensively on this parallel, and the initiation of construction on a huge skyscraper at the World Trade Center site only enhances the analogy. Afterall, it is the very same site that the “world’s tallest building” was finally under construction on in the late 1960s; just as it now the site of what will be the tallest building in the United States. As for the bearish fashion statements that are simultaneously being made, EWFF had this to say back in 2000.
In recent months, one of the most powerful changes in psychology has been a turn away from the image of prosperity. As Bob notes in Prechter’s Perspective, 1967-1970 marked years in which bell bottom jeans, long unkempt hair, sloppy shirts and boots became the style for baby boomers. “Not coincidentally, that dramatic shift from the neat look took place as the stock market was making its final run into 1968. The mood behind fashion is father to the outcome. In 1969, people wanted desperately not to look prosperous, and lo and behold, a few years later, they weren’t. Fashion signaled a mood change, which had tangible results.
 
The same result, a bear market, took place in the wake of the same type of fashion statement in 2000. So, when properly understood the "tangible results" of this analysis can be and have been very useful. When the above item was printed the NASDAQ was already down 1000 points (22%), but it still had another 75% to go. Another beneficial aspect of this endeavor is that it can help us learn a thing or two about how social mood operates. One month after we initially compared the fashion scene of 2000 to that of 1969, we had a hunch that we might be right about the implications for the stock market and asked:
What’s going on? Our best guess is contained in the “Theories and Observations Relating to Impulsivity and Herding” chapter of Human Social Behavior. Page 168 discusses the possibility that a reversal in social mood can find initial expression as “shared fantasy images [that] are an intermediate step between mood change and resulting action.” This was labeled “social visioning:” “Since mood is expressed immediately in countless ways other than buying or selling stock, expressions of the prevailing mood probably do include public visual images. These images would reflect mood quite immediately, before the public could mobilize itself enough to act in the economic or political arenas.

If a much briefer return to the late 1960s fashion scene was followed by the bear market of the early 2000s, what will the more persistent parallel since late 2003 bring. We would not be surprised if “Totalitarian Chic” is social vision of an even more serious mood swing than the casual fashions of 2000. In Cuba, Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Belarus and even the U.S. (see  entry of March 26), we already see harbingers of a giant step away from the bull market ideal of liberal democracy. For more on authoritarianism as a bear market manifestation see the August 2001 issue of EWT (which is excerpted in Additional References). Tomorrow we’ll discuss another smashing cultural trend manifestation that appears to be making the scene, just as it did in 1969.

November 2003, EWFF
When baseball attendance and playoff TV ratings experienced a late-season spike, it was cited internally as a result of the rally in stock prices. This observation was challenged as an example of two-armed socionomics. If the result is positive, an in-house skeptic charged, it’s a consequence of a recent rise in stock prices; when it’s negative, it’s the effects of a longer-term decline. Are we having it both ways? Not at all. To understand why, you have to step back and look more broadly at the prevailing trends. Scan the headlines and one glaring aspect stands out; the current social scene is riven with cross currents. On the one hand George Bush has raised more money than any other politician in history and is considered a shoo-in for re-election. On the other, his approval rating slipped below 50% for the first time in September and he is generating a level of anger and “hatred” that makes Clinton ’s opponents seem tame by comparison. Publishers have discovered that readers “can’t get enough of ideologues”on the left and right. The two sides trade punches by selling books with titles focusing on “Liberal Treachery” and “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them.” A Virginia minister says the “most powerful voices now speak from the far right and left” and adds that the effect extends to a “shrinkage of the moderate religious middle.” The Anglican church may split in two. On the same day that agreed to allow its nuclear facilities to be inspected by the U.N., a secret agreement calling for to supply nuclear arms to was reported. 

Entertainment reflects the same dichotomy. The best selling movie of the year was the Disney cartoon Finding Nemo. But the box office surprise of the summer was “consumers’ thirst for gore.” The new trend was announced by Freddy vs. Jason, which had the biggest opening ever for a horror movie. October brought the successful debut of Kill Bill Vol. 1 and a remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which came out in the bear market year of 1974 and spawned a whole new genre known as the slasher film. Kill Bill, “the most violent movie ever made by a major studio” got a four-star rating in the local paper. On the contemporary music scene, the battle between saccharine-soaked balladeers and edgier hip hop and hard rock artists continues to play out (see February 2002 Cultural Trends section). This week the more traditional and syrupy side moved back into the top spot, as Clay Aiken of American Idol fame, hit No. 1, but edgier rap artists have become increasingly dominant on the pop charts. Right behind Aiken are rappers Ludacris, Hard Edge and OutKast. 

This is exactly right for the current point in the downtrend as the year-long bounce combined with the aftereffects of a 200-year bull market are battling the emerging influence of a long-term bear market. The effect is very similar to the raucous interplay of social forces that were said to create a “world upside down” in 1969. The world of sports illustrates how deep the symmetry runs. In 1969, the New York Jets “shocked the world” by becoming the first team from the upstart American Football League to beat a team from the more established National Football League in the Super Bowl. This year, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were the underdog winners of the Super Bowl. After years of frustration, the Bucs became the first team that was not a member of the original NFL or AFL to win a Super Bowl. In golf, for the first time since 1969, all four major Professional Golfers Association tournaments were won by golfers who had never won a major before. 

In baseball, 1969 was the year of the Miracle Mets. After a decade of futility, the Mets overcame the powerful Baltimore Orioles to win their first World Series. This year, the Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox, two clubs that have not won titles since early last century, made their strongest bids in more than a decade. For the first time in years, TV ratings and the emotional involvement of fans shot higher as both teams came within a game of winning the pennant. According to the oddsmakers, however, there was an even more unlikely candidate, the Florida Marlins. With the help of a dropped fly ball in a game six divisional playoff and the interference of a fan in game six against the Cubs, the Marlins beat the Yankees in six games to win the Series. As the deciding game six played out, Yankee fans (as well as the Yankees’ starting pitcher) were convinced that the psychological pressure of Yankee stadium would get to the Marlins. “But the ghosts didn’t show.” A team with a payroll that was one-third the size of the Yankees became the first team to win a Series in Yankee Stadium since the bear market year of 1981. 

Like 1969, 2003 was a year in which baseball rebounded from two straight down years (in attendance). But the rally is not likely to be sustained. To generate excitement, baseball had to overthrow its own order. Ratings show that fans were more interested in the lovable losers than the Yankees, a team that dominated through the course of the mania as well as the last century of rising stock prices. Sustaining a dynasty in a bear market is much more difficult because unstable social forces make it almost impossible to maintain a winning balance. As the Series played out, a new item was added to baseball’s burgeoning list of troubles. Several of the game’s biggest stars have been called to testify in a “designer steroid” case that will tarnish the image of several major sports. The list of witnesses includes Barry Bonds, who smashed the single season home run record with 73 home runs two years ago. The steroids were not discernible by testing until recently, so just as financial performance has been called into question by slack accounting standards, the home run record has been tainted. With the market near new highs, the story’s been stuck on page 3. Look for it to rise toward the front page as the downtrend intensifies. The precise findings of the investigation matter little. Once the bear market resumes, baseball will be tried and convicted in the court of public opinion.  

Here’s another flash that goes straight back the vibrant pop scene of 1969:

 Pretty in pink
..and yellow, orange, green and other colors of the rainbow
The fashionistas in the audience might be garbed in their perennial black, but designers are in a more upbeat mood, sending out a bouquet of garden-fresh colors for next spring. The fashion industry seems to be saying that if women would just wear a pink suit or a floral party dress, the world would be a happier place. In show after show being staged during New York ’s Fashion Week, vibrant color was a hallmark. Zac Posen avoided doing any clothes in black, preferring beachy shell pinks and seafoam green. “Designers are looking at spring as a time of revitalization and optimism,” says the director a color-matching service. For those who still didn’t get it, “Let the Sun Shine In” lyrics from the Broadway classic “Hair” on the soundtrack hammered home the point. 
The Denver Post, September 21, 2003

One of EWI’s original observations on manifestations of a peak psychology was that “bright colors are associated with market tops and dull, dark colors with bottoms.” By the way, “Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In” was a No. 1 hit in 1969. In two additional throwbacks to the late 1960s, Simon and Garfunkel are on tour and The Beatles, who had their biggest selling album in 1969, are expected to make a commercial comeback in the fall. Tuesday’s issue of USA Today says:

Beatlemania Returns

This is not the first Beatlemania replay since the start of the bull market in 1982. But the re-release of Let It Be (without the orchestral arrangements) will take fans back to a very important point in time, 1970 and the Beatles last act as a combined entity. Don’t be surprised if it is their final encore for a long while. 

In countless other ways from the acceptance of openly homosexual lifestyles (see discussion in the August 2003 issue) to the escalating military entanglement in , the rising sense of outrage against corporate , labor unrest and an increasing willingness to take social demands to the street the parallel to 1969 is palpable. In some cases, the details are slightly different. In 1969, for instance, the corporate targets were ITT and IBM. Now they are Wal-Mart and Microsoft. So far, the anti-war demonstrations have been peaceful, but violence has flared on the California picket lines , celebratory riots following football upsets and Montreal, where youths rioted when informed that a concert by a punk rock band was cancelled. As one participant explained, “’Someone yelled, ‘Riot!’ and everyone jumped in. People were just full of rage. There is obviously something else inside of them. It can’t be just because of a show.” 

The exact details are less important than the direction, which should be toward confrontation, mayhem and destruction of the old order. As writer Geoffrey Colvin has noted of the late 1960s, “The Old Culture and the New Culture were at war in the larger society. And the New Culture won.” Of course, there are some key differences between 1969 and 2003. In 1969, it was the that was making great strides in space with the first moon landing. This time around, the forward momentum is all ’s as it launched a man into space on October 15. After a decade in which the was the lone superpower, ’s successful space shot symbolizes the return to a bi-polar geopolitical order. As the world adjusts to the strength of a second pole, the potential for social disruption is far more extreme than it was in 1969. This undoubtedly reflects the higher degree of the current trend change. At Grand Supercycle degree, this change is two magnitudes higher. Ultimately, it should make the cultural revolution of the 1960s look like a minor happening.

August 2001, The Elliott Wave Theorist 
Authoritarianism accelerated in the 1930s’ bear market under Stalin, who murdered tens of millions of people. In , communists took over in 1949, which was the very end of the world-wide bear market pattern in inflation-adjusted terms. The worst abuses there occurred in the bear market of the 1970s with the so-called Cultural Revolution, when the government stampeded city dwellers into the country to starve. ’s slaughter also took place in the ’70s. Then as we entered a bull market in the 1980s and 1990s, softened up a little bit. The same increase in positive mood holding sway in the 1980s-1990s bull market brought to a point where finally the logjam broke and even the Communist Party fell. So politics tend to wax and wane along with the wave pattern. As the bear market progresses, people search for leaders to take them out of their misery. They tend to conclude that force is the answer. Ironically, it brings much more misery to bear.

July 2000, EWFF
Be Careful What You Ask For
If you know where to look, you will find that countless seemingly disconnected fashion and social trends reflect the same underlying impulse. That was certainly true throughout the mania. In recent months, one of the most powerful changes in psychology has been a turn away from the image of prosperity. This impulse is showing up in many places. As Bob notes in Prechter’s Perspective, 1967-1970 marked years in which bell bottom jeans, long unkempt hair, sloppy shirts and boots became the style for baby boomers. 

“The wearers insisted they merely wanted to be comfortable, not fashionable. Not coincidentally, that dramatic shift from the neat look took place as the stock market was making its final run into 1968. That was late in the topping process for Cycle III. The fashions of 1967-70 preceded the first recession in a decade. The mood behind fashion is father to the outcome. In 1969, people wanted desperately not to look prosperous, and lo and behold, a few years later, they weren’t. Fashion signaled a mood change, which had tangible results.” 

Here at roughly the same juncture in Cycle V, the very same people are “dressing down,” as companies have gone casual to “mirror and match clients.” “This uniquely ’90s phenomenon [has] penetrated most corners of corporate .” The final holdouts, “white-shoe” Wall Street firms, gave in to pressure in April and May as junior staffers threatened to quit if they were not granted the right to come to work in casual attire. This change is socionomically of at least Supercycle importance, and it portends a long setback in social mood. 

In a similar leading-edge fashion note, the House of Dior has come out with a spring-summer haute couture collection described as “homeless chic” by The New York Times. “Dior models who starve themselves posed as the starving. They came down the runway raggedy and baggy, some swathed in newspapers, with torn linings and inside-out labels, accessorized with empty litter green J&B whiskey bottles, tin cups dangling from the derriere.” The designer’s inspirations were the “hobos” he sees as he jogs along the Siene, the mentally ill and “the Rag Balls of the 1930s, when French socialites wore tattered duds.” A more intense replay of the 1930s, financially speaking at least, lies dead ahead. 

Here’s another headline that also hints at a 180-degree turn:  
Give Me a Break!
With the economy booming, more Americans are demanding the ultimate perk: a long breather from work. 

The article quotes one burned-out, high-tech executive explaining, “I had gone over the top.” The founder of iVillage said she could not care less about the nosedive her company had taken in recent weeks. “Everyone talks about the bubble bursting. I say, ‘Who cares, when am I going to get some sleep?’” These managers should be careful. The last time people threw the culture into reverse with fashion and lifestyle statements as evocative as these, they got a much longer winter’s nap than they bargained for.