All Epsilon Theory Content
Everything we have published at Epsilon Theory since 2013, an archive of more than 1,000 evergreen notes.
These are the major topics and ideas we discussed during the 10/14/2022 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.
What we saw happen in the UK last week is the first shock, not the last, and all the massive pension funds and asset owners who have turned themselves into shadow hedge funds, full of swaps and leverage through the sweet whispers of Wall Street Wormtongue, will be our undoing.
Marie Antoinette has a rather interesting historical footprint. For all that her image is iconic and her reputation infamous, it’s not all the truth. The real Marie Antoinette has been lost to the Cartoon of Marie Antoinette™. So I want to show you a glimpse at the real person behind the cartoon and take a closer look at how her cartoon got started.
These are the major topics and ideas we discussed during the 09/30/2022 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.
The relationship between interest rates and inflation is non-linear and non-monotonic, and in exactly the same way that the Fed was unable to spur inflation by cutting rates to exceptionally low levels, so will they be unable to contain inflation by hiking rates off these exceptionally low levels.
The Fed first has to get interest rates to this monotonic tipping point before further interest rate hikes will have any appreciable effect in the real economy.
The Golden Age of Hollywood was full of drama. On and off screen. It was the age of carefully cultivated images. Fake names and secret procedures. And it was the age of censorship. The Hays Code and the censorship office had more influence on the film industry than any actor, director, or producer ever could. They had full control over what Hollywood made. Well, almost. There were still a few loopholes left to exploit.
These are the major topics and ideas we discussed during the 09/16/2022 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.
The widening gyre is political polarization, presided over by the Beast of Big Politics, Big Tech and Big Media.
Why can’t we see the Beast? Because Common Knowledge.
Because everyone knows that everyone knows that the enemy of America is not the Beast of the widening gyre, but the Other Party.
“The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular.”
That was Edward Gibbon in 1774. This is ET contributor Brent Donnelly saying the same thing but in a much more entertaining way in 2022.
US student debt is no longer ordinary debt, but has morphed into a bizarre government tax-and-spend model.
These are the major topics and ideas we discussed during the 09/09/2022 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.
These are the major topics and ideas we discussed during the 08/26/2022 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.
The US Treasury is the Eye of Sauron — a gigantic panopticon tower that sweeps the world with its unblinking gaze, seeking out the owners of power, i.e. money.
What Treasury did to Tornado Cash and its developers is just the beginning.
What’s in a name? Quite a bit actually. Names and titles can be all that’s needed to make some one a hero or a villain. So we’re looking at some villains who never got their proper title. People who were able to hide behind social standing and wealth to excuse their crimes.
Could the German situation get worse? Of course it could. Have we had a “Lehman moment” yet? No, we have not. But I don’t think we are that far away from a Lehman moment in Germany, after which further bets on the system breaking down become much less attractive as existential system risk grows much higher. I don’t think we are that far away from a Tepper moment in Germany, where risk/reward asymmetry becomes infinitely skewed to going long for those who are going to be wiped out if the system fails anyway.
These are the major topics and ideas we discussed during the 08/19/2022 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.
This is how we resist The Long Now, how we find an alternative world to the endless present where the Party is always right. By connecting the human past to the human present to the human future. By carrying the fire of our own stories in our own words across the weave of time and space. By building an ark and an arc.
This is my faith.
These are the major topics and ideas we discussed during the 08/05/2022 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 contributor Brent Donnelly went out and asked some people he respects what advice they would give kids heading off to college. Here’s what he found.
The total value of the Chinese residential property sector is approximately $60 trillion – twice the size of the US residential market and bigger than the entire US bond market. Bigger than the entire US stock market, too.
It is … ummm … having a moment.