Being clear-eyed and full-hearted doesn’t mean being passive, weak, or silent.
It means resisting every effort to supplant our autonomy of mind with symbols of identity, no matter the source.
Extreme language during election season isn’t anything new.
But this time it really is different. Our response must be different, too.
The question is not whether Trump will accept the election result if he loses. He won’t.
The question is whether a Missionary with actual power will join him.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m thoroughly despondent about the calcification, mendacity, and venal corruption that I think four years of Clinton™ will impose. Trump, on the other hand … I think he breaks us. Maybe he already has. He breaks us because he transforms every game we play as a country — from our domestic social games to our international security games — from a Coordination Game to a Competition Game.
The outcomes of NFL games are inordinately influenced by officials relative to other sports. This is not new. The Narrative environment faced by the NFL in 2021, however, IS new.
I’m not sure they’re ready for it.
When a famous person shakes his or her finger at you, they’re not telling you a fact.
They’re telling you how to think about a fact.
Called It - Election Edition
Men of God in the City of Man is a nine part series about a narrative virus that infected the charismatic and Pentecostal churches in the United States. It isn't a story about Christian Nationalism. It isn't a story about January 6th. It isn't a story about why people voted for Trump. It is a story about a story. It is a story about the language that created a self-sustaining movement defined by its unwavering belief in a fundamentally corrupt electoral system.
Recent Notes
A Truth That’s Told With Bad Intent
A truth that’s told with bad intent
Beats all the lies you can invent.
– William Blake
Our narratives of COVID-19 are all lies.
They are lies of a particular sort, political narratives that have a nugget of truth within them, but are told with bad intent. They are told this way because it works. Because the nugget of truth hides a deeper, unpleasant truth. And a Big Lie.
Hateful Memes and Election Season
There’s light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, and there’s light at the end of the pandemic narrative tunnel. No, on second thought I think that’s an oncoming train called “election season.”
American Idol
Take away a great performer’s live audience, and you take away their source of narrative power.
That’s true for American Idol. That’s true for Warren Buffett.
It’s also true for Donald Trump.
Too Connected to Fail
We have written that one of the major social changes occurring at present is the transformation of capital markets into public utilities.
The COVID-19 pandemic and policy response have accelerated that transformation. It is now the water in which we swim.
Office Hours – 4.28.2020
Join us this afternoon for the Pandemic Edition of Office Hours! As usual, we start promptly, so if you don’t have video within a short…
That Old Canard
We are now in the Flooz.com phase of the “how is COVID-19 going to change the world forever” process. Be careful out there.
Bear Stearns and the Narratives of Systemic Risk
The systemic risk question you need to ask yourself today is the same question you needed to ask in 2008.
What is the micro-level truth of the potential real-world shock, and does that micro-level truth threaten the common knowledge surrounding a levered business model and securitized asset class of enormous size?
Through No Fault of Their Own
I, for one, am delighted to learn of the “Through No Fault of Their Own” exemption to stock market risk.
One day, and soon, there will be a reckoning. Time to choose a side.
One for the Road
There was no greater sin between 2009 and 2020 than enduring a ‘constant drag on returns’. This is the Meme of Yay, Efficiency!, and it permeates every layer of our economy and markets.
Inception
We’re going to change the world, you know … you and me. We’re going to create points of failure for the system of sociopathic oligarchy AT SCALE.
First the People
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.
Our Finest Hour
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.
Until Further Notice
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.
The Miracle Max of MBS
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.
Once in a Lifetime
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.
When the Story Bends
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.
Getting PPE to Healthcare Workers and First Responders
This is our personal effort to help identify *need*, *sources*, and *money* for personal protective equipment distributions to healthcare workers and first responders.
Do The Right Thing
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.
The Non-Linearity of Need, Pt. 2
Let’s make this Our Finest Hour. From the bottom up.
Our Escape Story
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.