All Epsilon Theory Content
Everything we have published at Epsilon Theory since 2013, an archive of more than 1,000 evergreen notes.
The flow of dollars between the US and China is no longer circular, and that has enormous implications for how the US finances its budget deficits.
New from ET contributor Kevin Coldiron!
We live in a very safe world. And we’ve worked hard to make it safe. But sometimes we take that safety for granted. And sometimes we think that safety applies even when it really really doesn’t.
Wanna guess what book both Steve Bannon and Al Gore handed out to members of Congress?
ET contributor Matt Zeigler knows it was “The Fourth Turning”, and he’s got a thing or two to say about generational theory.
“My house in California sits within a short walk of the Hayward fault. Most of the time nothing happens, but occasionally we are jolted awake by an earthquake.”
New ET contributor Kevin Coldiron on the tectonic plates that are driving inflation (and its consequences) today!
Every virus needs carriers to spread. Even a Narrative virus.
We can learn a lot from what they have in common.
Political entrepreneurs are all around us. They influence what we think. They influence how we think. But we often don’t recognize it. In this episode, we pull back the curtain on the world of political entrepreneurs. We explain who they are, what they do and why they do it. We also look at what we can all do to protect ourselves from their influence.
This is a story about a virus and the gain-of-function research that produced it.
It’s not what you think.
The Bone Wars. A decade long battle of ego between two dueling paleontologists. It’s a tale of obsession, sabotage, and academic backstabbing. This clash of titans brought new attention to the theory of evolution and helped make dinosaurs the cultural juggernauts we know them as now.
TRIGGER WARNING:
This note will make many readers anxious and angry, because you have been told by the political entrepreneurs of your tribe that neither Oliver Anthony nor Greta Thunberg is ‘political’ at all, and that anyone who says otherwise is a bad person.
The political entrepreneurs of your tribe are lying to you.
Awareness of narrative is a necessary tool for the politically engaged citizen.
Up to a point.
If obliviousness to narrative is the easiest way to shut off our brains, narrative derangement syndrome is a close second. The citizen must be vigilant against both.
The recession-is-coming narrative is dead and the inflation-is-over narrative is dominant, making the Fed’s job that much harder and making resurgent inflation that much more likely.
Now about those 10-yr Treasury yields …
This is not a note about Mike Pence.
This is a note about language.
This is a note about how viral words of *therapy* have infected blue tribe brains and viral words of *war and conflict* have infected red tribe brains, words that change the way we see the world and speak to the world. Words that change the way we THINK.
Harper and Ben finally get a chance to talk about the Wizard of Oz and the not so wonderful behind the scenes production. Of course this was par for the course in the Golden Age of Hollywood as the studio star making system controlled everything. And we do mean everything.
A beautiful note by musician/composer Scott Bradlee, of Postmodern Jukebox fame, on the permanence and power of art.
Mythology IS the song.
What will your verse be?
In our kick-off episode, Ben, Matt and Jack talk about why we’re here – to break open the news reported by mainstream media to reveal the Nudging language of narrative and story that drives us.
We focus on the reporting of inflation as a perfect example of what we call Fiat News.
Recession – like beauty – is in the eye of the beholder. Unlike beauty, though, our economic perceptions are far more likely to fall into the self-imposed traps of cynicism and nihilism.
This is the Way.
Not just for the samurai but for the trader.
A revamped Cursed Knowledge is back! In this brand new episode, Ben joins Harper in the studio to talk about the all too common trope of killing off female characters to motivate male characters. Trust me, you’ve seen it. It’s everywhere and can tell us a lot about how hard it is to capture and maintain an audiences attention.
Physical viruses sometimes jump from one species to another.
Narrative viruses sometimes jump from one culture to another.
All it takes is the right virus and a susceptible host.
Narrative viruses are not immune to events in reality world – especially when we have made those narratives part of our identity.
And when a narrative becomes part of our identity, it changes what we need to be true.