Epsilon Theory runs the world's financial news through natural language processing-based cluster analysis to identify the most on-Narrative stories. We scan for those with the most similarity to all other stories as well as those with the most interconnectivity to multiple different key topics.
It’s not even a wall of worry any more. More like tiny little speed hurdles that we set up to clear by a mile. Just another day’s work for the Fiat News machine.
They’re not even pretending anymore.
It’s the Monday Zeitgeist, where we keep the Star Wars image streak alive at 2, celebrate the return of a beloved phrase, laud the arrival of a very dumb phrase, listen to political predictions from economists, and hear a political proposal from a journalist.
It’s the Weekend Zeitgeist, where we try to forget about markets for a day or two to see what matters in the rest of the world. This week, it’s robots, the 1980s, self-made men, Star Wars (more than an ACTUAL black hole), Moroccan exceptionalism and the Power of Google.
My father owned a red Corvair almost exactly like this one. He loved that car. Almost died in it, too, when he was t-boned at an intersection on his way to work in Bessemer, Alabama. That was in 1966. I was two years old.
The Boeing 737 MAX is our generation’s Chevy Corvair.
Unsafe At Any Speed.
Today in the Zeitgeist, an HBR article about the “mourning patterns” of Lehman employees. Color me triggered.
If you don’t know what Repo 105 was, you should. If you do know what Repo 105 was, you should find someone who doesn’t and tell them about it.
Wait … an article about Puerto Rico that’s not about tax shelters or bond defaults or crappy local government or Trump idiocy or crypto bros? … an article that’s about entrepreneurship and the sort of small businesses that are the life blood of a vibrant local economy? What the hell, New York Times?
Not to worry, though, there’s plenty of Fiat News and the usual raccoonery here in the rest of the daily Zeitgeist.
What fresh hell is this?
I know it’s originally a Dorothy Parker line, but Scream Queens made it their own. And it’s the only possible response to Forbes Brandvoice, where you, too, can “be an editor for your brand on Forbes.com”.
Just another day of fresh hell in narrative-world, here on the Daily Zeitgeist.
Today’s Monday Zeitgeist is all about book report analyses, central bank Common Knowledge, a new form of home finance in which you make principal payments over time, multi-level-marketing surprises again, and believability.
It’s the weekend, which means it’s a (mostly) finance-free zone on The Zeitgeist. This week-in-review gives us a glimpse into purchases of fine art, the comedic stylings of David Brooks, the continued relevance of Marvin Gaye, a marketing word salad and a solemn hymn to solemn hymns.
March wage growth came in at 3.2% today, which is being described by everyone in financial media as “muted”.
Kinda like the Disney flacks telling us that Blue Will Smith is “fine”. It’s a different genie, but still.
As the immortal line in The Outlaw Josey Wales would have it, “Don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining.” Just another day in the Zeitgeist.
Jeff Skilling is back, baby!
And that takes me back 30+ years, when a kid fresh out of college had a ticket to Houston Hobby airport and an offer letter from McKinsey.
Our lives are defined by the roads we avoid as much as by the roads we take. And more often than not, sheer blind luck is responsible for the difference.
In which Fiddy does his part to jumpstart the Connecticut economy, Kendall Jenner shows us the way, and Chrissy Teigen shares the stage with … Jay Powell?
It’s all the news that’s fit to Nudge, here in the Daily Zeitgeist.
Maya Angelou not only knew what made the caged bird sing, but also what makes Fiat News tick.
People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them FEEL.
Today’s Zeitgeist is all about trust in the trustless (ugh), hope springing eternal in Value Added, benchmarking the unbenchmarkable, Fiat News through bad Googling, and why we can’t shake fat fingers.
The weekend Zeitgeist, in which we are reminded that we need Silicon Valley to tell us what art is, that we need Zucker and Murdoch to tell us what news is, and opposing politicians to tell us what we should be mad about.
Wells Fargo and Mastercard CEOs say blockchain has yet to live up to the hype, Bolsonaro has a post-election let-down in Brazil, you can increase profit margins by squeezing your suppliers, and other tales from Captain Obvious in today’s Zeitgeist.
As a recovering short seller, I have the same reaction to the activist news on Bed Bath and Beyond as I do to video of Lawrence Taylor breaking Joe Theisman’s leg … I just can’t watch. Gotta turn away.
Come to think of it, this is kinda my reaction to all financial and political news these days.
Yield curve alert! We have a BLARING SIREN that is FLASHING …
They’re coming to get you, Barbara!
The weekend Zeitgeist, in which the Gray Lady’s news coverage gets even grayer, everybody loves Beto, Rusty discovers a new Hall of Fame about which he has opinions, and abstracted thinking in cheese research.
In which we are told that China is not the AI-powered dystopia we we were looking for, we encounter the “seen to” Fiat News tell in the wild, and we take a longer look at something over the better part of…an evening?
All the Fiat News that’s fit to scrutinize.