On The Money

Now I'm no economist, nor do I pretend to be, but this segment on WNYC's On The Media was pretty interesting -- especially now in the go go webtwopointoh 2000's (naughts?). They're talking here about how when TV and Film producers portray a trend on the screen, its usually past its prime. In terms of our current innnnernet bubble, I'm not sure if it applies, but if this little anecdote is any indication, I sure as hell hope my father doesn't start giving me info about "the google" or "the mac."

MIKE PESCA: Now, sometimes the phrase "smart money," the people who invest the smart money in Wall Street, see something – maybe it's someone who would represent dumb money - being interested in investing, and the smart money says, uh-oh, if this guy's into it, I've got something to worry about.

In your case, you're saying if Hollywood's into it, maybe the rest of us have something to worry about. But there's, I think, a famous anecdote with Joe Kennedy concerning this phenomenon.

GEORGE MANNES: Yeah. The famous anecdote, semi-apocryphal, is that he got out of the market in 1929 before the crash. And what prompted him to get out of the market was that his shoeshine boy was trying to give him stock tips. And he thought to himself, if everybody in the whole world thinks that it's no problem to make money out of the stock market, something terrible is going to happen.

[via On The Media (transcript), WNYC]