Every so often, things fall apart.
In the words of those who lived it, here are the vibes and the semantic signatures of the twentieth century’s most devastating social collapses.
From the meaning in their words, wisdom for our future emerges.
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.
This is an exclusive subscriber-only preview of the first six chapters of Rusty Guinn’s upcoming book Outsourcing Consciousness: How Social Networks are Making Us Lose Our Minds. The book explores how evolution, polarization, and technology are slowly transforming humanity into a hive mind - and what we can and can't do about it.
The Long Now is everything we pull into the present from our future selves and our children. We are told that the economic stimulus and the political fear of the Long Now are costless, when in fact they cost us … everything.
Tick-tock.
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.
Men of God in the City of Man
Amid the Widening Gyre of politics and the black hole of financial markets, the only anchor is us, together, walking with Clear Eyes and Full Hearts. Experience Ben's original 4-part series.
Outsourcing Consciousness
The Long Now
Men of God in a City of Man
Things Fall Apart
Recent Notes
The Zeitgeist – 5.10.2019
It’s the Friday Zeitgeist! In which we explore new ecological niches, dust off our not-so-dusty trade war battle plans, announce the latest winner of “Who’s Going to Blame Risk Parity First”, and talk fairness and Fair Isaac.
What Country Friends Is This?
Hyper-awareness of narrative, memes and cartoons can become paralyzing. Once we see them, we see them everywhere. But much of that paralysis comes because the demands of Clear Eyes are less than the demands of Full Hearts. And it’s the latter – identity – that truly matters.
The Zeitgeist – 5.9.2019
Process stories (what’s happening behind the scenes at the campaign / the White House / the locker room / the negotiations) are the original Fiat News. They are designed to make you angry and further the aims of whoever sourced the “news”.
Who benefits from making you angry at China and their “reneging” on a deal that never existed in the first place?
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. Or was it Eurasia? I don’t seem to remember so well these days.
The Zeitgeist – 5.8.2019
It’s the Wednesday Zeitgeist, in which we get the updated odds on the China Trade War, the updated ways to play the odds on the China Trade War, two quasi-sovereign oil & gas operators’ investments in blockchain-as-a-service, financialization again, and a reminder that what is dead may never die.
The Zeitgeist – 5.7.2019
Ever wonder why you don’t ever get hit with a year-end taxable gain from ETFs like you do with mutual funds? They use a legal (for now) pseudo-wash trade with in-kind redemptions.
Now Vanguard is doing the same thing with their mutual funds. And get this … they’ve filed a patent on this.
So amazing that I’m not even mad.
Wage Growth, Groucho Marx Edition
Wage stagnation in 2016 was actually much worse than you were told. Did this make a difference in the Midwestern states that swung the election, in that actual labor conditions were worse than everyone thought they were? I think yes.
Wage growth in 2018 was actually much better than you were told. Did this make a difference in the current Fed/Wall Street/White House narrative that inflation is dead and the easy money punchbowl can be maintained without consequence? I think yes.
For a few days, we’re making this ET Professional note available to everyone to review. We think the ET Pro service is something that every portfolio allocation, wealth management and active investment team can find useful, particularly for risk management.
The Zeitgeist – 5.6.2019
If you’re buying or selling the market because the China deal is on or because the China deal is off, you’re no different from everyone who had a ticket at the Derby. Good luck with that.
Also, what do Warren Buffett and Dune’s Leto Atreides have in common? They both get transformed into near-immortal creatures. I suppose a Cartoon cut-out is more attractive than a sandworm.
The Weekend Zeitgeist – 5.4.2019
It’s the Weekend Zeitgeist, in which we consider a going-forward rule for infrastructure editorials, a different kind of Valley Girl, an emerging Get Out of Dodge narrative, and SEO as a service.
The Zeitgeist – 5.3.2019
It’s the Friday Zeitgeist, in which people who will never buy a company learn how to do it, Powell delivers a belly-rub and takes away a child’s cookie jar simultaneously, Swiss francs climb the Zeitgeist ladder, a local bank makes it up on volume, and we all declare together that an OK faux-hamburger is more than just a faux-hamburger.
The Zeitgeist – 5.2.2019
Content placement by asset managers is like the elaborate red pouch of the male frigate bird. It is SO wasteful and extravagant that – in an economically perverse way – it demonstrates your evolutionary fitness.
Ditto for why the sell-side still cares about II ratings and “who’s the ax?” and all that stuff that hasn’t mattered for 20 years.
It’s plumage.
The Zeitgeist – 5.1.2019
Berkshire Hathaway’s financing for Occidental is in the Zeitgeist today.
What is shadow banking? THIS.
Not that there’s anything wrong with it. Hey, this is Uncle Warren’s true face, and I’m a fan of authenticity in all its forms and ways. But if you think poorly of a guy like, say, Ken Griffin because you think Citadel was “bailed out by the US taxpayer”, and you don’t think EXACTLY the same about Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway … then you’ve been played.
The Zeitgeist – 4.30.2019
It’s the Tuesday Zeitgeist, in which we explore how you could go with this (or you could go with that), the power of AS, my respect for you, IPOs aplenty and the trade/rotation of choice.
Starry Eyes and Starry Skies
The student loan crisis is a Big Deal. And it is only a part of a Bigger Deal: the Myth of College.
This issue will be front-and-center in the upcoming elections. We will all be handed our very own ‘Yay, College’ signs to raise high. More often than not, we will be asked to raise them in service of market-distorting policies which will make our problems worse.
The Zeitgeist – 4.29.2019
Our lead article today is about Uber (driving-as-a-service) and Amazon (shopping-as-a-service). It’s the triumph of on-demand everything, that makes both production and consumption an experience.
What do you get out experiential consumption and production?
You get to hold up a card that says, “Yay, swineherding!”
The Zeitgeist Weekend Edition – 4.27.2019
It’s the Weekend Zeitgeist, which means we leave the world of finance behind us to delve into bipartisan distrust of government, local opinion writers’ opinions on packaging materials, Yoopers, F-35 sales to completely trustworthy foreign partners, Fiat Features and the worst thing I ever saw.
The Zeitgeist – 4.26.2019
Yeah, we’re at that point in the cycle where you will be told about all the wonderful opportunities provided by levered private REITS.
For your IRA.
Because of all this craaaazy volatility in the stock market.
That and the President’s Cheif Economic Advisur tells us why “Dow 36,000” is just the tip of the iceberg.
The Zeitgeist – 4.25.2019
What is the only true superpower? The power to name things.
We name Milken and Boesky as junk-bond kings. We name their actions as a spree. We name their outcomes as devastation. We name their instrument as debt.
Today we name it balance sheet expansion.
Every man a king!
The Zeitgeist – 4.24.2019
Say what you will about @jack, but he understands the necessary and sufficient condition for being a successful CEO today: create a Wall Street-supported non-GAAP narrative to describe your company’s financial results.
Tired: MAUs
Wired: mDAUs
All this, plus Russell Wilson continues surfing the Zeitgeist like no one else.
Office Hours – 4.24.2019
In which Ben and Rusty discuss financialization, the incentivizes of low interest rate policy, the ‘financialization’ of education and the meaning of both for us…
The Zeitgeist – 4.23.2019
China’s Belt and Road Initiative is back, baby! Just needed a little narrative happy face of “respect for global debt goals” and “promotion of green growth”. That plus multi-billion dollar non-recourse loans at 2% for a high-speed rail to nowhere.
Plus more on Walmart robots, ESG, and of course Free College!
Just another day of you can’t make it up, fresh from the ET Zeitgeist.