Office Hours Recap 9/09/2022

Office Hours is an hour long Zoom call we have on Friday’s from 2-3pm ET. The event is exclusive to Epsilon Theory members and is a great way to hear Ben’s thoughts on markets, politics, and current events. Every Monday I post a brief recap of the previous OH. This is not a transcription of the call and doesn’t cover everything. But it does outline the main conversations we had.

Before this was posted on the ET Forum, but we’re moving it to the front page so more people can see the recap and understand the opportunities of Office Hours.

These are the major topics and ideas we discussed during the 9/09/2022 Office Hours as well as some of the biggest takeaways. If you have something you want to add to the conversation, let us know in the comments and join us next time.

ET Connect:

We are so excited for a big in person gathering and we want to keep you informed as possible about the logistics and events happening. So the big news this week is that we intend to have TWO ET connect meetings. Each gathering will last 2.5 days with one occurring over the weekend and one during the week. This way we hope to be accessible to even more people. Now we’re still finalizing dates (please bear with us a lot of this depends on Vanderbilt) but I know this will be happening in the Spring, likely around mid-late April. So don’t fill up that time just yet!

Markets:

China and Europe are both in a recession. Can the US avoid it? Can we manage a “mid-cycle slowdown” or a “soft landing”? Well Ben says it’s certainly possible. But what makes it difficult is that the degrees of freedom the central banks and the Federal Reserve have to course correct is nil. So possible, yes. Likely, no.

Political Risk:

This was the bulk of our Office Hours discussion, cooperation vs competition. When Ben started Epsilon Theory he wanted to spread knowledge of narratives and Game Theory. And this is where the Game Theory comes in. You should check out Virtue Signaling to revisit these ideas and see a really great image that perfectly visualizes this idea. There’s a constant push and pull within our political system and political parties between working together and looking out for ourselves. And that’s what divides us. 

We’d love to hear your thoughts on these ideas and hope that you’ll join us next time. If you haven’t already, sign up to access the Forum and Office Hours.