Category: The Zeitgeist

This isn't a note about Facebook. It's a note about online brokerage fees. And it's a note about Facebook. As a consumer ... don't cry for Argentina,…

Yes, Deadwood is the greatest HBO series ever. Don't @ me. I'm not having it. David Milch is MY President. And while Al Swearengen is the greatest ch…

Overnight repo is where the interest rates that central banks SET meet the interest rates that real economic actors USE. So what happens when the set…

It's the most internally consistent Zeitgeist we have seen in 2019. And it just happens to be consistent with everything we're reading in political / …

What happens when profitless-growth-forever narratives start breaking? We need a new drug.

Robert Shiller's new book, "Narrative Economics", will be out soon, and the publicity effort is kicking into gear. I am SO HAPPY that the rigorous stu…

I'm not sure if electric buses are really a national security risk. Even if they are, I'm not sure characterizing them that way is really an escalatio…

What does it mean when it becomes common knowledge that other investors are focused on evaluating common knowledge?

Is there a bubble in passive investing? Honestly, I'm not even sure what that question is asking. I DO think there's a bubble in markets today - a be…

In modern farming and in modern investing, we have become prisoners of the monoculture. It’s efficient. It’s necessary for a mass society of ever-…

It's the Monday Zeitgeist, including all known lanthanides and actinides.

There are four non-exclusive Occam's-razorish explanations for Bill Dudley's recent article inciting the Fed to get involved in the 2020 election: A)…

Every morning, we run The Narrative Machine on the past 24 hours worth of financial media to find the most on-narrative (i.e. interconnected and central)…

I haven't been very nice to Neel Kashkari. But he was nice enough to engage in a twitter exchange with me the other day. Well, sort of. Here's a re…

Nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. It's the best line from a movie full of them. I couldn't help but think about nuking inhuma…

Markets are boring. Hey, what if we securitized wokeness?

On Tuesday, the Macy's narrative was "I think they can make their comps." On Wednesday, the Macy's narrative was "I think they can cover their divide…

Cartoons are not evil. And yet they are the engine behind the Long Now, and very much at the center of our financial Zeitgeist. What is a clear eyed, …