A Few More Musings
Sometimes we have so much to say about a topic that it can't be fully addressed in a note. Yes, even our notes. When that happens we turn to podcasts for longer discussions. These conversations delve deeper into our notes as Ben and Rusty challenge the ideas behind them and give new context to their inspirations.
All the Epsilon Theory Podcasts
ET Podcast #13 – Wanting
It’s the only question that really matters here in the Age of Nudge: why do we want what we want?
A conversation with Luke Burgis, author of “Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life”.
ET Podcast #12 – Proof of Plant
I think this is how crypto can change the world. Not as “money” and not as Bitcoin! TM and not as a security and not as this speculative coin versus that speculative coin. Not by facilitating a market of goods, but by facilitating a market of GOOD.
ET Podcast #11 – A Working Narrative
We write a LOT about work. And the responses we get are … weird.
Once again, the most important narratives are the ones we tell ourselves.
ET Podcast #10 – In Praise of Bitcoin
Bitcoin has been subverted by the neutering machine of Wall Street and the regulatory panopticon of the US Treasury Dept.
What remains is a constructed narrative that exists in service to Wall Street and Washington rather than in resistance.
ET Podcast #9 – Make, Protect, Teach
How do we change the world? Not through corporations and political parties from the top-down, but through free-thinking citizens from the bottom-up. Not as an alienated flock, but as a cooperative pack. Not with abstractions and transactions, but with making, protecting and teaching.
Let’s gooooooo!
ET Podcast #8 – Leverage and Its Discontents
Three blow-ups in three months: Archegos, Greensill, and Melvin Capital.
What do they have in common? Insane leverage employed to maximize private gain while socializing potential losses.
ET Podcast #7 – Inflation Investing
We’re going to Pack-source a slate of investment strategies for an inflationary world. Here are five tentpoles to organize and support that effort.
ET Podcast #6 – The Business of Wall Street
Very little investing today is buying and selling shares of common stock in individual companies. Instead, we buy and sell what Wall Street calls “products” – mutual funds, ETFs, options, REITs, SPACs, etc.
Dave Nadig, who literally wrote the book on ETFs, helps us understand the history and future of the business of Wall Street.
ET Podcast #5 – Gnostic Nationalism
Every political movement has a political philosophy, and for Trumpism and MAGA it’s the Dominion theology of the charismatic/Pentecostal church.
Neither the rise of Donald Trump nor the attack on our Capitol can be understood without an examination of this faith and its constructed political narratives.
Believe it or not.
ET Podcast #4 – Hunger Games
What’s happening with Reddit and Gamestop and Robinhood is a revolution, but not the revolution you think.
This isn’t a “democratization” of Wall Street. You were played. Again.
It’s a revolution in Common Knowledge. And that changes everything. Again.