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
What Do We Need To Be True?
Modeling common knowledge by analyzing Missionary statements and their reverberations works. Except when it doesn’t.
A Tiger Can’t Change Its Stripes
What do you get when you give a Raccoon billions of dollars AND invisibility from regulators? Collusion and insider trading.
Hot and Cold
Most of us are under the impression that a protracted conflict within China will increase national unity. Not this time.
Office Hours 3.16.2021
Our March 2021 Office Hours. Talking about our latest notes and podcasts.
A Conversation with Howard Marks
ET contributor Brent Donnelly talks with Howard Marks about why traditional value investing is likely permanently impaired as a strategy and why Growth vs. Value is a false dichotomy. Boomshakalaka!
The Best Way to Rob a Bank
I think that the collapse of Greensill Capital has a lot of systemic risk embedded within it, particularly as the fraudulent deals between Greensill and its major sponsors – Softbank and Credit Suisse – come to light.
This is the first Big Fraud I’ve seen in 13 years with the sheer heft and star power to ripple through markets in a systemic way. Not since Madoff.
A Freaky Circle
Excessive complexity in a deal or structure isn’t necessarily nefarious, but it also isn’t a good sign. The distraction and confusion you and I feel reading about these deals is usually not the problem.
It is the point.
The Fed’s Kryptonite
An in-depth look at the interdependence of inflation, Treasury supply, and the Fed reaction function.
Bottom line: inflation is the Fed’s kryptonite.
A Change in the Water
Increasingly, the common knowledge of our investment world – what everyone knows that everyone knows – is that inflation is a problem and you should be focused on it.
The Opposite of 2008
In 2008, the US housing market – together with a Fed that thought the subprime crisis was “contained” – delivered the mother of all deflationary shocks to the global economy.
In 2021, the US housing market – together with a Fed that thinks inflationary pressures are “transitory” – risks delivering the mother of all inflationary shocks.
The ET Pack is going to figure this out … together.
The Third Rail Switch
In the same way that narrative shaped a conversation about the role of police going forward in 2020, narrative can shape a conversation about the role of teacher unions and public sector unions more broadly. My money is still on the status quo, but I’ve been wrong before.
Office Hours – 2.16.2021
Check out our February 2021 Office Hours!
Danish Food-Safety Expertise for the Win
WHO beclowns itself with its “fact-finding mission” to Wuhan.
Hammers and Nails
When we talk about bias, we usually think about a political bias. But the world of 2021 now supports persistent idiosyncratic biases and frames through which information is passed. How do we ensure that our information consumption habits account for this?
Hunger Games
You have been told that the odds are ever in your favor. You have been told this for your entire life. More and more, you suspect this is a lie.
You have been told a new story. A brave story. That by banding together and acting as one, you can “democratize” the stock market. Today, as you see the collapsing stock prices of the companies you supported, you suspect that this was a lie, as well.
When Does the Game Stop?
What’s happening now in equity markets isn’t the product of some paradigmatic democratization of finance. It’s just another bubble that will end badly.
Portrait of a Very Serious Investor
The Very Serious Investor is quite disturbed by recent goings-on in illiquid, small cap stocks with high short interests. These happenings represent an assault not only on the Very Serious Investor’s livelihood, but his entire cosmology. People placing profitable discretionary trades in the financial markets when they lack even a single Ivy League degree. Imagine!
The Invulnerable Hero*
No, the real story here probably isn’t about a revolution against Wall Street. But that doesn’t mean that there isn’t an opportunity to build a movement – right now – to transform it toward fair, free and open markets.
The Zimbabwe Event
The South African variant virus (501.V2) is not the immediate threat to the United States as the UK variant virus (B117). But 501.V2 has the potential to create a far more powerful narrative – vaccine resistance – that can have a greater market impact than the more pressing issues of B117.
More and more, I think the variant viruses create a tradeable event for markets.
For Leon Black is an Honorable Man
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with the American dream that once was,
And I must pause till it come back to me.