All Epsilon Theory Content
Everything we have published at Epsilon Theory including our long-form content, a library of hundreds of pieces written by Ben, Rusty and others over the course of the last 5+ years. Plus, short-form pieces for those without the time (or attention span) for classic Epsilon Theory notes.
COVID-19 is endemic, and its mutations will likely be part of our lives going forward.
But there is another disease this virus has caused, and it is a disease of the mind. It is the endemic mindset. And we can eradicate it.
Today.
Polls create the plays. Election models create the score. Fivey Fox and “Nate Silver” announce the game. All to create engagement with a diversified media corporation.
No one understands how to create and sell a spectator sport better than Disney.
There’s a moment when the real world peeks through the narratives that surround us, and we convince ourselves that this will be the truth that frees our fellow citizens/investors/neighbors from their delusions.
But truth is only one of the necessary conditions for this kind of change. The other?
Mercy.
Three weeks ago, I didn’t see a narrative path for Trump to win a turnout-based election hinging on four or five swing states.
Today I do.
It’s the same funny feeling I got in 2016, but with a twist.
Stimulus is dominating market news, and even with an election coming up is playing an outsized role in political news. So what is the current fiscal stimulus really about?
Maybe more importantly, what is it absolutely, definitely NOT about?
Once Daryl Morey’s new idea became the common knowledge of the NBA – once everyone knows that everyone knows that the way to win NBA games is to maximize 3-point shots and lay-ups – then it became a permanent feature of the way professional basketball is played. It became an equilibrium.
It’s exactly the same with politics.
The corruption of media by missionaries means that we now live in a world of two sets of facts. It is a world which gives us two choices: to champion our truth, or to work toward eliminating the world-of-two facts structure.
To hell with OR. Let’s choose both.
Aguilar, Chengan and Custovic dig into the concept of “tracking error” and find that current measures do a poor job of handling skewness and kurtosis. They propose a new approach to calculating tracking error – Quantile Tracking Errors (QuTE) – to address this weakness in traditional measures.
Sometimes a grift isn’t in what you say, but in the difference in what you say to different audiences.
It’s not the information. It’s the meta information.
It’s the October 13th Epsilon Theory Live!, where Ben and Rusty discuss all things narrative in an interactive format.
The frustrated money manager is almost always a smart, accomplished professional in his own field who believes VERY much in the existence of The Smart Money ™.
The frustrated money manager is almost always a liiiittttle bit on the make.
Like a Vatican cardinal.
2020 has awakened us to the Black Days constructed while we slept.
Now we act, and not just to avoid the worst excesses of the Trumpist clownshow or the Socialist lunacies.
Now we change the entire freakin’ world.
For ourselves, yes. For our children, even more.
One day we will recognize the defining Zeitgeist of the post-GFC Obama/Trump years for what it is: an unparalleled transfer of wealth to the managerial class.
This Wall Street Journal article is not an attack on that system. It is a defense. It is telling you that the system is fine … we just need to do something about these bad apple CEOs.
It is a literal golden age for CEOs whose talent is the creation and propagation of narratives.
Why? Because it works. And it works because we have accepted a financial and business media that has been redesigned into a cheering section.
This is a short-form summary of our long-form note The Projection Racket (Part 2), located here. While it attempts to present the most accurate picture of the arguments made, we always think that the long-form note provides the most helpful context. In any representative democracy (RD), your vote is never your full expression of political …
The Projection Rackets will say that the solution to two-party dominance and the erosion of political self-determination is, like everything else, is to vote. Express yourself! Don’t you believe in democracy?
They are wrong. We, the people, CAN fix this. And if we want it enough, we will.
Yesterday, 5 GOP Senators wrote a letter to Netflix, saying that their plan to adapt Liu Cixin’s “The Three Body Problem” for TV/film amounted to “complicity” with the CCP and their horrific mistreatment of the Uyghurs.
Why am I reading this NOW?
It may be a brave new world of Davey Day Trader, but it’s not enough to convince yours truly to drink Huxley’s soma. Or the Fed’s SOMA (System Open Market Account).
The closing of the American mind is evolving into its next stage: the welding shut of the American mind.
What’s the difference between closing and welding shut? A closed door can be opened. A welded shut door cannot. We can’t save the minds already lost. We can only prevent our OWN minds from being welded shut.
And we can. Together.