If you’re like me, you’ve been put off from digging deeper into DeFi by the terrible signal-to-noise ratio of anything crypto-related on the interwebs. That’s why I found this DeFi primer (using Maker DAO as a specific example) by ET contributor and banking analyst Marc Rubinstein to be so fantastic.
Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrative campaign.
Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrative campaign.
Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrative campaign.
Modeling Common Knowledge by analyzing Missionary statements and their reverberations works. Except when it doesn’t.
What do you get when you give a Raccoon billions of dollars AND invisibility from regulators? Collusion and insider trading.
Most of us are under the impression that a protracted conflict within China will increase national unity. Not this time.
Recent Notes
This is Water
Capitalist productivity has become capitalist financialization.
Wall Street gets something to sell, management gets stock-based comp, and the White House gets re-election.
What do YOU get out of financialization? You get to hold up a card that says “Yay, capitalism!”.
The Zeitgeist – 4.17.2019
It’s the Wednesday Zeitgeist, chock full of belied recessions, a little bit of humility, a little bit of YOLO, an expensive investment sold on yield, a less expensive investment sold on yield, slow maybes and a peek into the Widening Gyre.
The Zeitgeist – 4.16.2019
It’s not even a wall of worry any more. More like tiny little speed hurdles that we set up to clear by a mile. Just another day’s work for the Fiat News machine.
They’re not even pretending anymore.
Neverland
Disney is making a play to return to Neverland, a land where valuations are based on establishing market share and dominance of an emerging industry, where the moment you start worrying about how much money you’re making is the moment the Narrative breaks. For students of markets and narratives alike, it will be worth watching.
The Zeitgeist – 4.15.2019
It’s the Monday Zeitgeist, where we keep the Star Wars image streak alive at 2, celebrate the return of a beloved phrase, laud the arrival of a very dumb phrase, listen to political predictions from economists, and hear a political proposal from a journalist.
The Zeitgeist Weekend Edition – 4.13.2019
It’s the Weekend Zeitgeist, where we try to forget about markets for a day or two to see what matters in the rest of the world. This week, it’s robots, the 1980s, self-made men, Star Wars (more than an ACTUAL black hole), Moroccan exceptionalism and the Power of Google.
The Zeitgeist – 4.12.2019
My father owned a red Corvair almost exactly like this one. He loved that car. Almost died in it, too, when he was t-boned at an intersection on his way to work in Bessemer, Alabama. That was in 1966. I was two years old.
The Boeing 737 MAX is our generation’s Chevy Corvair.
Unsafe At Any Speed.
Strange Bedfellows and Proxy Wars
The arrest of Julian Assange presents one of the most fascinating, explainer-laden, Fiat News-driven narrative maps we have seen. Tread carefully in taking what you read about this one at face value, friends.
Gravity
The gravity of political polarization is real, and the mass which lies at the base of its well are narratives of existential risk.
The Zeitgeist – 4.11.2019
Today in the Zeitgeist, an HBR article about the “mourning patterns” of Lehman employees. Color me triggered.
If you don’t know what Repo 105 was, you should. If you do know what Repo 105 was, you should find someone who doesn’t and tell them about it.
The Zeitgeist – 4.10.2019
Wait … an article about Puerto Rico that’s not about tax shelters or bond defaults or crappy local government or Trump idiocy or crypto bros? … an article that’s about entrepreneurship and the sort of small businesses that are the life blood of a vibrant local economy? What the hell, New York Times?
Not to worry, though, there’s plenty of Fiat News and the usual raccoonery here in the rest of the daily Zeitgeist.
The Zeitgeist – 4.9.2019
What fresh hell is this?
I know it’s originally a Dorothy Parker line, but Scream Queens made it their own. And it’s the only possible response to Forbes Brandvoice, where you, too, can “be an editor for your brand on Forbes.com”.
Just another day of fresh hell in narrative-world, here on the Daily Zeitgeist.
The Zeitgeist – 4.8.2019
Today’s Monday Zeitgeist is all about book report analyses, central bank common knowledge, a new form of home finance in which you make principal payments over time, multi-level-marketing surprises again, and believability.
The Love/Hate Cartoon
When it comes to telling us how ‘the smart money’ and ‘the dumb money’ are playing it, there’s always someone who will tell us it’s Duck Season, and someone who will tell us it’s Rabbit Season. The reality is that it’s always Elmer Season. You and me? We’re Elmer in this cartoon.
The Weekend Zeitgeist (3.31 – 4.6.2019)
It’s the weekend, which means it’s a (mostly) finance-free zone on The Zeitgeist. This week-in-review gives us a glimpse into purchases of fine art, the comedic stylings of David Brooks, the continued relevance of Marvin Gaye, a marketing word salad and a solemn hymn to solemn hymns.
The Zeitgeist – 4.5.2019
March wage growth came in at 3.2% today, which is being described by everyone in financial media as “muted”.
Kinda like the Disney flacks telling us that Blue Will Smith is “fine”. It’s a different genie, but still.
As the immortal line in The Outlaw Josey Wales would have it, “Don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining.” Just another day in the Zeitgeist.
The Zeitgeist – 4.4.2019
Jeff Skilling is back, baby!
And that takes me back 30+ years, when a kid fresh out of college had a ticket to Houston Hobby airport and an offer letter from McKinsey.
Our lives are defined by the roads we avoid as much as by the roads we take. And more often than not, sheer blind luck is responsible for the difference.
The Zeitgeist – 4.3.2019
In which Fiddy does his part to jumpstart the Connecticut economy, Kendall Jenner shows us the way, and Chrissy Teigen shares the stage with … Jay Powell?
It’s all the news that’s fit to Nudge, here in the Daily Zeitgeist.
First World Problems in Fund Management
An interesting question with a straightforward answer. Put simply, if a fund manager tells you they’re selling, ignore the reason they give and replace it with “Big founder wants liquidity.”
Office Hours – 4.2.2019
Welcome! A few reminders as usual: We begin pretty promptly at 2PM. If you don’t see the video by 2:01 PM ET, try reloading the…