All Epsilon Theory Content

All Epsilon Theory Content

 

Everything we have published at Epsilon Theory since 2013, an archive of more than 1,000 evergreen notes.

Can’t Fight This Feeling

By Rusty Guinn | August 12, 2020 | 11 Comments

No, I don’t think there’s a bubble. No, I don’t think a crash is coming. But when Mark Cuban says this reminds him of 1999 and 2000, he’s right.

And the reason worries me more than either of those things.

The Grifters, Chapter 2 – N95 Masks

By Ben Hunt | August 11, 2020 | 10 Comments

I don’t think I have the words to communicate just how screwed up our PPE distribution system is in this country, or what a profound betrayal it is for our government to support this perverse system of personal greed and corporate ambivalence in exchange for campaign soundbites and photo ops.

But I’m gonna try.

Office Hours – 8.13.2020

By Rusty Guinn | August 11, 2020 | Comments Off on Office Hours – 8.13.2020

It’s the August 11th…I mean, August 13th edition of Office Hours, an interactive livestream in which Ben and Rusty discuss all things Narrative in the world today.

Get Me Tools and a Beer!

By Rusty Guinn | August 10, 2020 | 9 Comments

There is nothing wrong with wanting the US to bring back certain critical manufacturing industries to its shores.

But don’t buy the narrative that a crazy scheme like the Kodak grift is the only way to make it happen.

Deep Sociopathy

By Ben Hunt | August 6, 2020 | 6 Comments

Is murder bad? Hmm, I dunno. What are the chances I will be caught and what price will I pay if that happens? If the odds are high enough and the price steep enough, then yeah, I guess THAT would be bad. But the act of murder itself? I mean, I’m sure whoever I murdered – if I were to murder someone, that is, because I really don’t think you can prove that I did – was getting in the way of something that was very important to me. When you really think about it, they were doing the bad thing! Why do you ask?

Welcome to the world of commodity trade finance.

The Mountain and the Molehill

By Rusty Guinn | August 4, 2020 | 22 Comments

There ARE real threats to both the rule of law and our cherished capitalist system today.

But you won’t find either on the streets of Portland or Seattle.

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Market

By Peter Cecchini | August 3, 2020 | 5 Comments

If you’ve never seen the 1963 comedy “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”, do yourself a favor and check it out. Phil Silvers and Spencer Tracy and Ethel Merman and Jonathan Winters? Yes, please.

ET contributor Pete Cecchini remembers. Better yet, it’s the perfect foil for figuring out a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Market.

The Grifters, chapter 1 – Kodak

By Ben Hunt | July 30, 2020 | 15 Comments

We’ve been assaulted by three brutal grifts in just the past week … three smacks from Bobo and his bag of oranges … each deserving of an Epsilon Theory note.

Here’s chapter 1 – the ludicrous crony capitalism of the US government giving Kodak $765 million for “pharmaceutical supply production”.

That’s the Thing I’m Sensitive About!

By Rusty Guinn | July 29, 2020 | 2 Comments

Like all abstractions, extremes can be misleading. They can also be revealing. Using extreme times to learn what our leaders and institutions are sensitive about is a critical, unmissable lesson.

Taiwan is now Arrakis

By Ben Hunt | July 27, 2020 | 37 Comments

“He who controls the spice controls the universe.”
The world’s principal supplier of semiconductors – the spice of OUR global empire – is now Taiwan.
Thanks a lot, Intel. Thanks a lot, Bob Swan. Thanks a lot, Jack Welch. Thanks a lot, all you Wall Street wizards of financialization.
Taiwan is now Arrakis. And we WILL fight over it.

Overserved

By Ben Hunt | July 20, 2020 | 14 Comments

Everyone is in a tizzy about day traders and Robinhood. “Ooooh, they’re going to have such a hangover when the bubble pops.”

Pffft. They’ll be fine.

The investors facing a hangover are small family offices, plied with endless offerings of fee-heavy SPVs and SPACs by multi-billion dollar asset managers.

The Stupid War

By Rusty Guinn | July 19, 2020 | 24 Comments

The war over reopening schools is a proxy war.

The real war is between political parties, but they’ve set up the fight as teachers on one side vs. parents on the other.

This is not our war. This is THEIR war.

How to stop it? We refuse to fight.

Snip!

By Ben Hunt | July 16, 2020 | 4 Comments

Both Trump and Biden have proposed $2 trillion spending plans for next year, confirming exactly what we wrote last December. To the dollar. To the word.

We can’t always write tomorrow’s headlines today. But we do try!

We the People? We the Pack.

By Ben Hunt | July 14, 2020 | 21 Comments

I still believe this will be our finest hour.

Not of the America that was. But of the America that can be.

As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk, the law runneth forward and back;

For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.

An Advantageous Contagion

By Rusty Guinn | July 14, 2020 | 17 Comments

Sometimes good news comes from unexpected places.

And sometimes it’s best just to go with it.

The Anti-Anarchist Cookbook

By Ben Hunt | July 8, 2020 | 45 Comments

Defund the police? No.

Demilitarize and Deunionize? Yes.

Police reform is just the start.

Harrumph!

By Rusty Guinn | July 7, 2020 | 8 Comments

There is an emerging narrative structure that places a lot of demands on us as citizens – and justifiably so.

But the claim that “silence is complicity” becomes something else entirely when we redefine silence as the failure to say exactly what we demand.

The Lost Art of the Jawbone

By Rusty Guinn | July 7, 2020 | 4 Comments

Market propaganda used to be an art form, I tell you! What happened to us?

The transformation of capital markets into political utilities happened.

Office Hours – 6.30.2020

By Rusty Guinn | June 30, 2020 | Comments Off on Office Hours – 6.30.2020

It’s the June 30th edition of Office Hours, an interactive livestream in which Ben and Rusty discuss all things narrative in the world today.

Sideways: Observations on Pain and Privilege

By Ben Hunt | June 29, 2020 | 25 Comments

A sideways moment is when your life becomes a probabilistic exercise, where you are at the mercy of one of two merciless social institutions: hospitals or the police.

My life went sideways a week ago, and here’s what I learned about pain and privilege.