ON the markets blog, http://www.professorelam.typepad.com/markets
I called this a Socionomic Stroll Down Broadway.
I have written about mood and am trying to get you more focused on it. We are in the midst of a Wave Two up in the stock market, mood is up from last fall. It won't last long. Grasping this down up and next, down again, of the social mood will be important in your ability to navigate what will happen the next few years. Right now the Administration is riding a typical Wave 2 up in popularity after the disastrous fall, easy enough to blame that on Bush. But what to do when the markets turn down again by fall?
Plan your future based on the overall mood swing now. Here is an example of how a musical is 'in tune ' with the times.
Socionomics is a social theory postulating that social mood drives markets. The mood changes then the markets change. Indeed how else could we have seen such a dramatic reveral March 10?
Social mood is on display in things that entertain people such as movies, music, and drama. To be successful an art form must collide with the prevailing social mood at the time. A full page ad for WICKED, A New Musical, in the San Antonio Express News caught my attention of such an intersection of art with mood in time and place.
We suggest you read the timeline at the site WICKED.
It traces the early failures and final success of Frank Baum in finally hitting gold with the Oz story after numerous life failures.
but our focus is more current. A new novel re invented the story line in a manner politically correct for the 1990s.
The novel was early. Animal rights was in tune but fascist figures would have to wait a bit.
The story hit Broadway at precisely the right time to resonate with the mixed emotions of the stock market in late 2003.
The DOW was picking itself up off its post 9/11 low below 7500. It had fallen from the all time high in March of 2000 at 11,500. A this point the story has been written to describe the actual origin of both Good Witch Glinda and Bad Witch of the West. Both start out as young girls but are affected by, as George Lucas put it in Star Wars, different versions of The Force. And so the story becomes the perfect metaphor for the time. The Good Bad stock market have finally crashed and along with it hopes of the Baby Boomers. Which will prevail the good or bad witch? The musical is now touring the USA, and again the market is, you guessed it, coming off market lows. Presenting two versions of the same story it reflects the social mood. The mood is now upbeat, favoring musicals in general, but not Oklahoma, rather a Witches' brew. This is the stuff of all classic good and evil stories from Beowulf to Sherlock Homes (Holmes versus Moriarity) to Star Wars to Harry Potter. Dorothy in the story is essentially orphaned for her time in Oz just as Luke Skywalker and Harry Potter are orphaned.
How well did the producers connect with mood, well this clip says it all.
Now on national tour, appearing in major cities, if the run completes before the corrective Wave Two up completes this fall, the producers will have timed it perfectly.
Professor Elam 
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