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Chapter 5: The Axe that Never Was

By Rusty Guinn | 17 Comments

Our brains evolved to tell stories before they evolved to speak.

This has fundamental implications for our susceptibility to communication in the networked age.

Why Am I Reading This Now? 12.23.24

Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrativ‌e campaign.



Why Am I Reading This Now? 12.16.24

Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrativ‌e campaign.



Why Am I Reading This Now? 12.09.24

Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrativ‌e campaign.



Why Am I Reading This Now? 12.02.24

Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrativ‌e campaign.



Why Am I Reading This Now? 11.25.24

Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrativ‌e campaign.



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

Covid is China’s Vietnam War

By Ben Hunt | December 22, 2022

Covid is China’s Vietnam War, and the current outbreak is their Tet Offensive.

This is how common knowledge changes, as now everyone knows that everyone knows that the CCP is not just a liar, but an incompetent, failed liar.

The Recipe for Agent Orange – The Projection Racket, Pt. 3

By Rusty Guinn | December 1, 2022

There is a true story of free market capitalism. It is one of humanity’s greatest and most important stories.

There is also a myth of free market capitalism. It is one of humanity’s most manipulated stories.

The MacGuffin, Part 2: The Story Arc of SBF and FTX

By Ben Hunt | November 18, 2022

The MacGuffin is the object of desire.

It is the thing around which the plot of the story revolves.

Here is the story arc of SBF and FTX, and the MacGuffin that anchored it all – the Magical Money Machine.

Stock Buybacks!™ and the Monetization of Stock-Based Compensation

By Ben Hunt | November 9, 2022

I love stock buybacks, but I despise Stock Buybacks!™ – the issuance of new shares to management with one hand and the buying back of those shares with the other.

Over the past decade, Stock Buybacks!™ have transferred more than a trillion dollars from shareholders to managers. Not founders, not entrepreneurs, not risk-takers … managers.

UK Pensions Webinar Recording

By Ben Hunt | October 18, 2022

This is the recording of our webinar on UK Pensions that took place on October 14th, 2022. If you want to continue the conversation, check out the ET Forum.

A Brief History of the Past 10,000 Years of Monetary Policy

By Ben Hunt | October 5, 2022

What we saw happen in the UK last week is the first shock, not the last, and all the massive pension funds and asset owners who have turned themselves into shadow hedge funds, full of swaps and leverage through the sweet whispers of Wall Street Wormtongue, will be our undoing.

Monetary Policy is Non-Linear

By Ben Hunt | September 22, 2022

The relationship between interest rates and inflation is non-linear and non-monotonic, and in exactly the same way that the Fed was unable to spur inflation by cutting rates to exceptionally low levels, so will they be unable to contain inflation by hiking rates off these exceptionally low levels.

The Fed first has to get interest rates to this monotonic tipping point before further interest rate hikes will have any appreciable effect in the real economy.

The Widening Gyre

By Ben Hunt | September 19, 2022

The widening gyre is political polarization, presided over by the Beast of Big Politics, Big Tech and Big Media.

Why can’t we see the Beast? Because common knowledge.

Because everyone knows that everyone knows that the enemy of America is not the Beast of the widening gyre, but the Other Party.

Sauron Remains Undefeated

By Ben Hunt | August 25, 2022

The US Treasury is the Eye of Sauron — a gigantic panopticon tower that sweeps the world with its unblinking gaze, seeking out the owners of power, i.e. money.

What Treasury did to Tornado Cash and its developers is just the beginning.

Narrative and Metaverse, Pt. 4 – Carrying the Fire

By Ben Hunt | August 17, 2022

This is how we resist the Long Now, how we find an alternative world to the endless present where the Party is always right. By connecting the human past to the human present to the human future. By carrying the fire of our own stories in our own words across the weave of time and space. By building an ark and an arc.

This is my faith.

The Fifteen Faces of Fiat News

By Rusty Guinn | July 26, 2022

We’re building a Narrative Early Warning System (NEWS) as our first major research project in a larger effort to inoculate ourselves against the weaponized narratives of Big Tech, Big Media and Big Politics.

Mailbag! Hollow Men Edition

By Ben Hunt | July 21, 2022

The Epsilon Theory commentariat is the best thing on the Internet today. Watch from a distance if you like, but when you’re ready … join us!

Hollow Men, Hollow Markets, Hollow World

By Ben Hunt | July 9, 2022

Over the past 25 years, our leaders have intentionally constructed an Apocalypse Now world of proclamation and fiat, where our wealth has grown much faster than our economy.

The bill is due for their hubris, and inflation is here to collect it.

Being Human in a LARPing World

By Ben Hunt | June 8, 2022

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.

The MacGuffin, Part 1: The Corrupt Crypto ‘Revolution’

By Ben Hunt | May 17, 2022

If you don’t see that the crypto “industry” has become just as blindingly corrupt, just as oozingly fatuous, just as profoundly captured by the Nudging Oligarchy as the traditional financial services industry it was supposed to replace … well, you’re just not paying attention.

NGMI

By Ben Hunt | April 11, 2022

The Fed’s rate hikes to curb inflation?

Not gonna make it.

Narrative and Metaverse, Pt. 3: The Luther Protocol

By Ben Hunt | March 24, 2022

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” – MLK

Does it? Does it really?

Today we take a stand to defend the arc of the moral universe in its long path towards liberty and justice for all. Today we begin the Luther Protocol.

They’re Not Sending Their Best

By Ben Hunt | March 15, 2022

The Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act is an abomination. It won’t lower gas prices, it will raise them. And the sponsors of the bill know it.

This bill was not written to become a good law. It was written to tell a good story.

Tough Guys

By Ben Hunt | March 7, 2022

Using NATO to escalate a shooting war with Russia – either directly through a no-fly zone or indirectly through a Polish cut-out and NATO “backfill” – is exactly what Putin wants. It’s the only thing that can save him. It’s how we ALL lose.

ChaChaCha!

By Ben Hunt | February 21, 2022

Tired: Pump and Dump

Wired: ChaChaCha!