January 20, 2007

In the news again: the man pictured on the jacket of my book. (See the image in this blog’s upper left-hand column).

On September 11, George Mannes was a reporter for TheStreet.com, reporting on tech stocks. Once the World Trade Center was attacked, he was instantly transformed into a war correspondent, covering the events for the financial Web site and posting his first-hand report that very day. (TheStreet.com, in the hours and days after the attacks, became an invaluable resource for people searching for information.) On the cover of the book, in an image shot by Kelly Price, Mannes can be seen running for his life to escape the billowing debris-cloud that spread across lower Manhattan as the south tower collapsed.

Mannes now writes for Money magazine. And in a story in the new issue of the magazine, Mannes suggests that the stock market might be due for a major downturn. Quoth the “Business” section of today’s New York Times:

“We are heading for a market correction, if Money’s (tongue firmly in cheek) logic can be believed. As George Mannes notes, in April 1987, filming of the movie Wall Street started and the crash of 1987 occurred just months later. In the spring of 2000, production of two television shows – The Street and Bull – began and that summer the Standard & Poor’s 500 began a two-year slide. And in 2005, two shows about flipping houses were shown, and the real estate market promptly tanked.

“Why worry now? HBO recently announced a new series about a hedge fund trader and his pals. When Hollywood turns its cameras on a financial trend, it’s historically a prequel for a market collapse.”