The Trump administration has flipped between a half dozen distinct narratives telling us what these tariffs are really about.
Why? Because they needed to wrap the truth in a better story. Time to go Narrative Shopping.
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.
The cure for the cancer of gun culture and police culture is not to be found in reform laws around guns and police, but in reform ideas around culture, ideas that create a new dimension of American society that rejects LARPing and LARPers alike.
Inflation
What made Bitcoin special is nearly lost, and what remains is a false and constructed narrative that exists in service to Wall Street and Washington rather than in resistance.
The Bitcoin narrative must be renewed. And that will change everything.
This Time Last Year
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Crypto
Recent Notes
Notes from the Diamond #3: Everything Has Its Price
Allocators and investors can learn a lot from professional baseball about how to structure incentives and compensation for portfolio managers. And how NOT to do it.
Never Give Up Hope
Enmity and competitive games can be beaten. Sometimes doing so requires someone willing to be booed by his home crowd.
Things Fall Apart (Part 3)
The Fed, China and Italy are the Three Horsemen of the Investment Semi-Apocalypse. They’re major market risks, but you’ll survive.
There’s a Fourth Horseman. And it will change EVERYTHING about investing.
Figaro
In Part 4 of the Three-Body Alpha series, we explore how narrative may shape the tendencies of certain trend-following strategies – and how investors should respond. We also talk Tesla, if you’re into that sort of thing.
They ALL Came in Through the Bathroom Window
When reading news, especially financial news, be vigilant for strings of causality. Most financial events are extremely overdetermined.
O God, Make Me Humble
We have built industry standards around minimizing the appearance of risk. As a result, we now have an epidemic of ability-signaling, when what we really need is humility.
Funding Secured
Shifting common knowledge on Saudi Arabia has infected the narrative around SoftBank’s Vision Fund, which in turn places unicorn valuations at risk.
The Tells of Fiat News
The mechanics of effective storytelling and the tells of Fiat News are very similar. Add knowledge of them to your news-reading arsenal.
The Grammar of Risk
Take it from a list of terrible pop songs (and one OK, if overrated song from the Doors): lessons that provide an answer instead of a process are usually lessons badly taught and badly learned.
Investment Diligence and the Cornelius Effect
Nobody likes to admit it, but the investment industry hires and invests with the smartest-seeming people that seem sufficiently likable. And it doesn’t work.
Putting the Real Back Into Realpolitik
“Order should not have priority over freedom. But the affirmation of freedom should be elevated from a mood to a strategy.” Yes, please.
Saudi Arabia and the Common Knowledge Game
An historic night it was. A pleasure to have a private dinner with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, his royal family…
Locusts’ Lament
There is a huge gap in the narrative and language used to describe private equity and hedge funds. Even when it is correct, it calls for caution in our discussions and decision-making.
Why Ben Sasse Loses the Game of You
The Ben Sasse Cartoon does not match the Ben Sasse life, and that’s a politically existential problem here in the Widening Gyre.
Dogs, Dog Food, and the Curse of Some Talent
The thing is, Butch, right now you got ability. But painful as it may be, ability don’t last. You came close but you never made it. And if you were gonna make it, you would have made it before now.
We Were Soldiers Once … And Young
Two emails from soldiers, both asking questions that I can’t answer alone. We need a pack.
When Good Words Go Bad
Sometimes the meanings of words change. Sometimes that doesn’t mean anything. Sometimes it does.
Why Am I Reading This NOW? 10/12/2018 Edition
A brief selection of stories from my daily news routine that made me wonder: “Why am I reading this now?”
Complacency and Concern in Robo-Land
When it comes to robo-advisors, there is a wide gulf between common knowledge within the industry and without. I’m not sure what that means yet, but it means something.
The Narrative Giveth and The Narrative Taketh Away
The growing strength and coherence of Narrative Machine visualizations show the creation of powerful common knowledge around inflation, where everyone knows that everyone knows that inflation is rearing its very ugly head.
Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrative campaign.