All Epsilon Theory Content
Everything we have published at Epsilon Theory since 2013, an archive of more than 1,000 evergreen notes.
This is not a chronicle of errors and mistakes made during COVID-19.
This is the story about the inevitable, simultaneous failure of each of the institutions designed to operate in our interest.
It is the story of how we respond to fragility with resilience.
The oil Narrative is not as it seems.
The White House and others assume the Saudis and Russians are at odds. Don’t be so sure. Their interests are aligned around disabling U.S. production. Period.
There is no country in the world that mobilizes for war more effectively than the United States. And I know you won’t believe me, but I tell you it is true:
This will be #OurFinestHour.
We have been asked to discuss our views about the CARES Act. In order to facilitate future such requests, we have provided what we hope to be a helpful rubric.
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.
We are led by high-functioning sociopaths, in our politics and our economy, and nowhere is this more apparent than in our war against COVID-19.
How do we protect ourselves? Not by allying with the sociopaths, but by finding our pack.
Saying that “America needs to reopen for business” isn’t the same thing as doing what we need to reopen America for business. Words matter, but actions matter more.
Let’s do the right things. Now.
This is our personal effort to help identify *need*, *sources*, and *money* for personal protective equipment distributions to healthcare workers and first responders.
Bailout the airlines and their rank-and-file employees? You bet.
Bailout the CEOs? Not a chance.
But that’s what we’re gonna do.
When people stop asking “How much worse is this going to get” and start asking “How much longer is this going to last”, things really start changing.
But we can change that, too.
Levering up a portfolio based on a model that we know cannot act as a representation of the state of the world is perilous.
Doing the same with a country is far, far worse.
The structurally bullish will warn us against failure of nerve. The traders will warn us against hesitation. The structurally bearish will warn us about being unable to shift into a defensive shape. But what we should be worried about now is a lack of imagination.
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.
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.
Covid-19 is a fertile ground for narratives and missionaries of all kinds – from politicians to central banks, corporate leaders and financial media pundits. Join us as we discuss them.
In a potential recession, need isn’t evenly distributed. In a pandemic, that’s even more true. The time to start helping is now.
Originally published in Quillette, it’s the Epsilon Theory take on Don’t Test, Don’t Tell” – the single most incompetent, corrupt public health policy of my lifetime.
In 1995 we crossed a line in music.
In 2009 we crossed that line in markets.
In 2016 we crossed that line in politics.
Music charted the way back. Let’s listen to its lesson.
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.