Additional References
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 Iran agreed to allow its nuclear facilities to be inspected by the U.N., a secret agreement calling for Pakistan to supply nuclear arms to Saudi Arabia 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.
More Similarities and a Big Difference
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 issue) to the escalating military entanglement in Iraq, the rising sense of outrage against corporate America, 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 (see picture), 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 October 1969, for instance, the Concorde took off and flew at supersonic speed for the first time. A Fibonacci 34 years later, the Concorde has had its last flight. Forbes magazine called the grounding, “Another giant step backward for aviation.” In 1969, it was the U.S. that was making great strides in space with the first moon landing. This time around, the forward momentum is all China’s as it launched a man into space on October 15. After a decade in which the U.S. was the lone superpower, China’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.
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