Our mediated cultural transition from sadness to generalized anger to focused anger at specific people and institutions of the Other Party is an entirely intentional effort by Big Politics, Big Tech and Big Media.
This is the Great Ravine, and it’s all going to get much worse before it gets any better.
Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrative campaign.
The thing about the Common Knowledge Game is that once it breaks, you can’t put it back together again. It’s over, people. This only gets worse. You can’t “reassure” voters and donors after we all saw what we all saw. pic.twitter.com/fAG8ARAASQ
— Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory) June 30, 2024
California's new $20 min wage law exempts restaurants that bake and sell bread, where bread is defined to exclude bagels and croissants. Only benefits Panera. Newsom mega-donor owns >24 Paneras. Newsom says "part of legislative sausage-making". https://t.co/8xvHPQQ3CD
— Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory) February 28, 2024
Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrative campaign.
Palate cleanser ...
The McGee Applied Research Center for Narrative Studies is up and running at Vanderbilt, thanks to a $5m gift from Epsilon Theory pack members!
Already doing some really cool work on the TV News Archive at Vandy!https://t.co/0DMryw49uR
— Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory) February 26, 2024
Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrative campaign.
CNN just described the people attending the political ceremony marking Gen Qasem Soleimani’s death as “pilgrims”.
I understand why the theo-fascist generals running Iran use this loaded language. I don’t understand why CNN copies them.
— Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory) January 3, 2024
There has been a lot of concern about how the regulation of ChatGPT and LLMs will play out
In our latest episode of Breaking News, I asked @EpsilonTheory if it is warranted.
He reminded me that the ship isn't turning around at this point.
Full episode:https://t.co/f6VjaABCOA pic.twitter.com/0JY2s1wvIn
— Jack Forehand (@practicalquant) December 18, 2023
The most important and informative thread you will read this week. Promise. https://t.co/gLRXPLmy3l
— Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory) November 16, 2023
I think what many Americans are missing is that Hamas has been fighting a Total War with Israel for decades, and since Oct. 7 Israel is fighting a Total War back. There are no ceasefires and no negotiations in Total War, just an existential fight to the end.
Full episode below. pic.twitter.com/rufC4bn64z
— Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory) November 11, 2023
A fantastic conversation with @howardlindzon!
This is the Great Unmooring, and we are entering the Great Ravine. https://t.co/nPE5kEhDW9
— Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory) November 5, 2023
Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrative campaign.
Would be poetic if the SDNY prosecuted this murder. pic.twitter.com/gZOgvyE1qL
— Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory) November 3, 2023
Man, those internal Michigan polls must be brutal. https://t.co/GsuIgydRZq
— Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory) November 2, 2023
If you don’t see that there is an intentional effort by China and Russia to astroturf pro-Palestine protests in the West, you’re just not paying attention. https://t.co/NtajhkPPeW
— Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory) October 31, 2023
What’s happening right now in the art world is also exactly what’s happening in the Democratic Party. And what already happened in the Republican Party. These are schisms that cannot be fixed. https://t.co/xS1CWTrtzI
— Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory) October 28, 2023
Recent major media stories that feel to us like they’re part of a larger narrative campaign.
With nominal US growth of 8%+ after the fastest, severest rate hike program ever ... if you don't see that the Fed's monetary policy models are completely broken, then you're just not paying attention.https://t.co/AaImC021a1
— Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory) October 26, 2023
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.
Polarization often isn’t an accident. It is the result of intentional narrative construction – constructions designed to make us believe that we are sane and unfairly judged, and that our opponents are insane and hypocritical.
Understanding how to recognize and respond to these constructions in the wild is now an indispensable skill of the citizen.
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
No Country for Old Men
We all know someone who is in urgent-but-not-emergency need of some medical procedure that can’t be scheduled while Covid-19 is storming the hospital ramparts.
I’m one of them.
Misfortune vs. Carelessness
What’s happening with the Bureau of Labor Statistics with recent employment data reports is an intentional, political carelessness that supports status quo cartoons of control.
It’s not a Democrat thing and it’s not a Republican thing.
It’s a power thing.
Never Forget
Since June 4th 1989, the Chinese government has tried to erase any record of the Tiananmen Square massacre from history.
Can a Tiananmen Square massacre happen in the United States? I doubt it.
Can a Tiananmen Square rewriting of history happen in the United States? Absolutely. It already is.
No Accident
Our bi-modal political environment doesn’t just impact our politics. It shapes our social and cultural narratives and channels our responses to every event.
Yet Americans are large. They contain multitudes. And they can reject the political archetypes into which narratives seek to channel them. If this is to be our finest hour, then they must.
Office Hours – 6.2.2020
In this Office Hours, Ben and Rusty discuss all things pandemic recovery, markets and the narratives of protests surrounding the death of George Floyd.
Self Assured Destruction
Our leaders have botched the Covid-19 war, and we are defenseless against a now endemic disease.
15,000 to 20,000 Americans officially sick. 500 to 1,000 Americans officially dead.
Every day.
The free world does not easily survive a globally endemic Covid-19.
The Hertz Story Isn’t What You Think
The Hertz bankruptcy is not a story of financialization by an entrenched, self-dealing management team.
It’s a story of financialization by an entrenched, self-dealing minority ownership.
A New Gilded Age
A Gilded Age isn’t an age of prosperity. It is an age of the narrative of prosperity, and narratives of prosperity are always top-down political narratives.
There is but one way to tear down top-down political narratives: action.
The End of the Beginning
ET contributor Demonetized is back, grappling with some investment themes here at the end of the beginning.
The skinny: deep value is at best a tactical trade. At best.
No Free Lunches
ET Contributor Pete Cecchini looks at the monetary and fiscal policy stimulus coming out of Washington and sees a staggering price to pay in lost real growth and massive institutional corruption.
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.
Exigent Circumstances
ET contributor Peter Cecchini makes a strong case that the Fed is playing a dangerous game with its constant use of the “exigent circumstances” exception to Section 14 of the Federal Reserve Act.
Does the alphabet soup of new facilities and SPVs established by the Fed in recent weeks amount to an illegal taking of assets? It’s a reasonable question.
Even more reasonable: if not here, where do you draw the line?