The Zeitgeist

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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.

Misfortune vs. Carelessness

By Ben Hunt | June 9, 2020 | 6 Comments

What’s happening with the Bureau of Labor Statistics with recent employment data reports is an intentional, political carelessness that supports status quo cartoons of control.

It’s not a Democrat thing and it’s not a Republican thing.

It’s a power thing.

Never Forget

By Ben Hunt | June 4, 2020 | 8 Comments

Since June 4th 1989, the Chinese government has tried to erase any record of the Tiananmen Square massacre from history.

Can a Tiananmen Square massacre happen in the United States? I doubt it.

Can a Tiananmen Square rewriting of history happen in the United States? Absolutely. It already is.

The Hertz Story Isn’t What You Think

By Ben Hunt | May 27, 2020 | 5 Comments

The Hertz bankruptcy is not a story of financialization by an entrenched, self-dealing management team.

It’s a story of financialization by an entrenched, self-dealing minority ownership.

Hateful Memes and Election Season

By Rusty Guinn | May 13, 2020 | 1 Comment

There’s light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, and there’s light at the end of the pandemic narrative tunnel. No, on second thought I think that’s an oncoming train called “election season.”

American Idol

By Ben Hunt | May 6, 2020 | 9 Comments

Take away a great performer’s live audience, and you take away their source of narrative power.

That’s true for American Idol. That’s true for Warren Buffett.

It’s also true for Donald Trump.

That Old Canard

By Rusty Guinn | April 27, 2020 | 7 Comments

We are now in the Flooz.com phase of the “how is COVID-19 going to change the world forever” process. Be careful out there.

Through No Fault of Their Own

By Ben Hunt | April 20, 2020 | 17 Comments

I, for one, am delighted to learn of the “Through No Fault of Their Own” exemption to stock market risk.

One day, and soon, there will be a reckoning. Time to choose a side.

The Miracle Max of MBS

By Rusty Guinn | March 30, 2020 | 7 Comments

Sometimes investors and corporate executives will beg for a miracle to bring mostly dead assets back to life. That’s OK. But we don’t have to give it to them. And we don’t have to treat their requests as news in themselves.

The Python and the Pig

By Ben Hunt | March 13, 2020 | 2 Comments

The NYC healthcare system – one of the finest in the world – is about to be slammed beyond anything they have ever seen. ER visits and patient testing is where it begins. It moves from there through the system, ending in ICU wards. The process is like a python swallowing a pig, except this isn’t a pig. It’s a whale.

Tick-Tock

By Ben Hunt | March 12, 2020 | 15 Comments

For the first time our federal government is treating the fight against this virus like the war that it is.

Is it pathetic and sad and a corrupt betrayal of the public trust that it took this long? Absolutely.

But now here we go. And there is no country in the world that mobilizes for war more effectively than the United States.

The Mozilo Market

By Ben Hunt | February 28, 2020 | 12 Comments

After a Countrywide earnings call in 2008, I trusted NO ONE in government or Wall Street to tell the truth about the mortgage crisis.

And that’s the way I feel about COVID-19 today.

Kitchen Sink It

By Rusty Guinn | February 20, 2020 | 9 Comments

To receive a free full-text email of The Zeitgeist whenever we publish to the website, please sign up here. You’ll get two or three of these emails every…

Love in the Time of COVID-19

By Ben Hunt | February 17, 2020 | 7 Comments

Within a few months, the reality of COVID-19 will overtake the propaganda of the CCP and their toadies at the World Health Organization, as real-world companies begin making real-world economic decisions to maintain their enterprises in the face of a real-world threat.

Those decisions will be led by sports franchises.

Options

By Rusty Guinn | February 12, 2020 | 20 Comments

Our social institutions require of us many songs. One of those songs is about the roots of poverty in immorality. If we’re going to stop singing their songs, this may be a good place to start.

The Promised Land!

By Ben Hunt | February 5, 2020 | 9 Comments

Every once in a while, narrative-world gives you a gift that just keeps on giving. So it is with outgoing CEO Ginni Rometty’s regime of despair at IBM.

Today my focus is on the IBM-sponsored hagiography that is springing up like slime molds on the underside of rotting swamp cabbages.

Once You Buy a Prize, It’s Yours to Keep!

By Ben Hunt | January 31, 2020 | 4 Comments

Outgoing IBM CEO Ginni Rometty has filed 167 SEC Form 4s detailing her stock transactions in the company.

So I downloaded and compiled all of them to see how much money she has sucked out of IBM, just like I did for outgoing Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg.

You Had One Job

By Ben Hunt | January 26, 2020 | 19 Comments

Forget about impeachment and its partisan Kabuki theater. It’s a joke.

If there’s some rich dude who bought his way onto that Wuhan evacuation flight, and you know there is … if this Administration is forsaking its ONE JOB to protect American citizens, and you know they are …

THAT’S what brings down this government.

Pleased to Meet You, Hope You Guess My Name

By Ben Hunt | January 22, 2020 | 10 Comments

It’s the one thing that Donald Trump and Rachel Maddow can agree on … “who the hell cares about the budget?”

If you don’t see that every government in the developed world is about to embark on a massive deficit spending spree, with modern-day ziggurats constructed in every burg and hamlet … you’re just not paying attention.

The Church of The Long Now

By Ben Hunt | January 17, 2020 | 2 Comments

I know, I know … it’s me being mean to Neel Kashkari again.

Sorry, not sorry. Belittlement and scorn is the only weapon we have against the creeping ensorcellment of the Long Now.

Shot, Chaser

By Ben Hunt | January 13, 2020 | 9 Comments

So I downloaded and compiled every SEC Form 4 filing that former Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg has ever made, to answer one simple question:

How much money did Dennis Muilenburg suck out of Boeing over the last ten years?