All Epsilon Theory Content
The soul of Epsilon Theory is our long-form content, a library of hundreds of pieces written by Ben, Rusty and others over the course of the last 5+ years. These are the print-and-take-home-for the weekend notes that made Epsilon Theory what it is today.
We all know we’re supposed to figure out who the patsy at the table is, but somehow everyone we see ends up being a straw man. Maybe fine in normal markets, but in periods of stress? If you don’t know who owns it, you don’t know anything.
Everyone is right about buybacks. They’re good. They’re fine. They’re ethical. Oh, and they’ll be gone, too, if the industry doesn’t realize that it’s playing a metagame and not a parliamentary debate.
Price drives the transaction volumes of non-cash-flowing, non-productive things. Not the other way around.
There are prominent people at the intersection of Wall Street and crypto who know this to be true – who know that the “Yay, network effects!” narrative is BS when it comes to Bitcoin – but who promote the narrative anyway.
Why? Because they know that it’s narrative – even false narrative – that DOES drive the price.
It’s privacy and big tech again in today’s Zeitgeist, which is all about mutually assured surveillance. And for Epsilon Theory, it hits home. I think it will hit home for you, too.
Some things are only palatable when they have been transformed into a cartoonish version of themselves. For financial professionals that raises a moral question: how much emphasis on the cartoon of expertise about us is too much?
We get a lot of email and responses, but we REALLY got a lot about our comments on a curriculum that could replace the signaling-minded post-secondary degree industry. We publish them here.
Financialization is not a mean-reverting phenomenon. It’s too good of a gravy train for Wall Street, corporate management and the White House to stop now. So they won’t. Like any self-respecting Great White shark, the Nudging State and the Nudging Oligarchy never stop swimming. They never stop eating.
Want to survive these financialized waters if you’re potential shark food? You’re gonna need a bigger boat.
“De Blasio’s ‘pay parity’ hypocrisy” is a feature article in today’s NY Post, and a central article in today’s media Zeitgeist.
Dig a little deeper into the “scandal”, and you learn that the “evidence” is complete horseshit.
It’s an article specifically designed to manipulate someone like me … someone who is VERY predisposed to believe the worst about Bill de Blasio because I dislike his politics SO MUCH.
It’s a rage engagement, one of two primary forms of Fiat News used to win the Game of You.
Golf, as the saying goes, is a good walk spoiled. But ET contributor Demonetized finds meaning in golf’s pathology of failure.
Swing mechanics and gimmicky shortcuts? Please. In golf and in investing, you’ve got one simple rule to improve your game.
Commit to the shot.
Everything is topsy-turvy in the Upside Down of Stranger Things. That’s the Big Baddie in the picture above, known as the Mind Flayer.
Financial media is a Mind Flayer, too, especially when it comes to coverage of crypto and tech companies.
It’s the July 9th ET Live!, where we dive into all things Libra, Facebook and get an update on market narratives.
A few months ago, we noted how important it had become for public figures and corporations to control their own cartoon, lest someone control it for them. Well, now that advice has itself become the narrative. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
Mark Zuckerberg is not The Spanish Prisoner. He’s the guy running the con.
Libra, the cryptocoin promoted by Facebook, is a classic Spanish Prisoner con. This is how the State and the Oligarchy co-opt crypto. Not with the heel of a jackboot. But with the glamour of convenience and narrative.
Bitcoin will be permanently diminished in its social importance by the adoption of Libra and other Oligarchy-sponsored and State-embracing crypto currencies. Bitcoin will never again MEAN what it used to mean.
It’s the Pack Gathering, a small conclave of like-minded people interested in talking ideas and enjoying good, genuine company.
The first event will take place in our headquarters town of Fairfield, Connecticut. New England and Mid-Atlantic, this is your event.
“You just recently hours ago met with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping,” Carlson said. “Are you closer, do you think after that meeting, to a trade deal?”
“I think so,” Trump replied. “We had a very good meeting. He wants to make a deal. I want to make a deal. Very big deal, probably, I guess you’d say the largest deal ever made of any kind, not only trade.”
He just can’t help himself. And neither can we.
I was mad, and I was going to write an article about what had made me mad.
Except I was wrong. And the truth about what is happening in media should be much more concerning. It is seductive in ways that will make it difficult to resist for anyone who hasn’t decided to pay attention to those who would tell us what the crowd thinks the crowd thinks.
There’s a narrative that exists in Fintech that isn’t really present in most other early stage technology businesses. It defines why they’re different, who succeeds and who fails at getting to a liquidity event and a long-term growth trajectory.
The rollercoaster nature of Bitcoin is a feature, not a bug.
The price of Bitcoin, like the price of any great work of experiential or performance art, is entirely based on narratives. The price of Bitcoin is entirely based on how these narratives make us FEEL.
Gold, too.
It’s time to see what the Narrative Machine can tell us about the stories that determine the price of Bitcoin and gold.
Missionary activity isn’t always intended to mislead. But when it is, it is almost always aided by another sociopathic tendency – the complete unwillingness to admit error. What’s worse – we are practically designed to empower it.
This is a flat-out damning article about Amazon, relating example after example of how the company screws over legitimate authors on their industry-dominating online bookstore by allowing (if not encouraging) counterfeit publications.
So why does it seem like I am being told how to FEEL about Amazon in this article? Why am I reading this NOW?