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This commentary is being provided to you as general information only and should not be taken as investment advice. The opinions expressed in these materials represent the personal views of the author(s). It is not investment research or a research recommendation, as it does not constitute substantive research or analysis. Any action that you take as a result of information contained in this document is ultimately your responsibility. Epsilon Theory will not accept liability for any loss or damage, including without limitation to any loss of profit, which may arise directly or indirectly from use of or reliance on such information. Consult your investment advisor before making any investment decisions. It must be noted, that no one can accurately predict the future of the

That’s a London scene from the post-apocalyptic zombie flick 28 Days Later on the left, and a London scene from the pre-apocalyptic March Covid lockdown on the right. I say pre-apocalyptic because today’s Covid situation in London with a 70% prevalence of the B117 SARS-CoV-2 virus is a lot worse than the situation last March. No zombies yet, but 2021 is young.

Last Wednesday we published our analysis of behavioral Covid fatigue + UK-variant SARS-CoV-2 spread in the United States.

And we released a podcast on our work, also available on Spotify and iTunes. 

Last Friday, the CDC held a press conference and released an analysis showing that they expect this more virulent UK-variant strain (B117) to account for 50% of Covid cases in the United States by the end of

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This commentary is being provided to you as general information only and should not be taken as investment advice. The opinions expressed in these materials represent the personal views of the author(s). It is not investment research or a research recommendation, as it does not constitute substantive research or analysis. Any action that you take as a result of information contained in this document is ultimately your responsibility. Epsilon Theory will not accept liability for any loss or damage, including without limitation to any loss of profit, which may arise directly or indirectly from use of or reliance on such information. Consult your investment advisor before making any investment decisions. It must be noted, that no one can accurately predict the future of the

The Epsilon Theory podcast is free for everyone to access. You can grab the mp3 file below, or you can subscribe at:

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ZXOnreiGGiUtuGHzbin6d

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/epsilon-theory-podcast/id1107682538

In episode #3 of the Epsilon Theory podcast, Rusty and I discuss the dramatic spike in Covid cases in Ireland over the last two weeks of December, and the risk of seeing a similar “Ireland Event” here in the US.

Unfortunately, once it becomes apparent that an Ireland event is occurring, it’s too late to stop it.

The time to act is NOW, not with indiscriminate lockdowns, but with strong restrictions on international and domestic air travel to contain the UK-variant virus while we accelerate vaccine delivery.

Daily reported new Covid cases, Ireland, through Jan. 7, 2021

For the past year, I’ve been consumed with how Covid numbers are used/manipulated to create political narratives. From China to WHO to don’t-test-don’t-tell to Covid Trutherism in all its forms … that’s been the windmill I’ve tilted at for almost 12 months now.

Last week I became consumed by a new twist on all this – Covid numbers that were being largely ignored. Insane infection numbers coming out of UK and Ireland, apparently driven by a new virus strain, that we acknowledged over here but didn’t seem to be too mussed about.

It reminded me of the Covid numbers coming out of Italy last February. Was Europe once again our crystal ball? Were we once again going to ignore THAT?

And when I say “insane infection

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This commentary is being provided to you as general information only and should not be taken as investment advice. The opinions expressed in these materials represent the personal views of the author(s). It is not investment research or a research recommendation, as it does not constitute substantive research or analysis. Any action that you take as a result of information contained in this document is ultimately your responsibility. Epsilon Theory will not accept liability for any loss or damage, including without limitation to any loss of profit, which may arise directly or indirectly from use of or reliance on such information. Consult your investment advisor before making any investment decisions. It must be noted, that no one can accurately predict the future of the

DISCLOSURES

This commentary is being provided to you as general information only and should not be taken as investment advice. The opinions expressed in these materials represent the personal views of the author(s). It is not investment research or a research recommendation, as it does not constitute substantive research or analysis. Any action that you take as a result of information contained in this document is ultimately your responsibility. Epsilon Theory will not accept liability for any loss or damage, including without limitation to any loss of profit, which may arise directly or indirectly from use of or reliance on such information. Consult your investment advisor before making any investment decisions. It must be noted, that no one can accurately predict the future of the

To receive a free full-text email of The Zeitgeist whenever we publish to the website, please sign up here. You’ll get two or three of these emails every week, and your email will not be shared with anyone. Ever.

That’s a still from the police camera on 2nd Avenue in Nashville, Tennessee on Christmas morning, capturing the detonation of a large bomb. The bomber was killed, eight people were injured, and massive damage was done to an entire downtown city block, including the destruction of an AT&T telecom hub. Here are some photos of the damage, from a local news twitter feed:

While far less heinous than the 1995 Oklahoma City attack, where 168 Americans (including 15 children) were killed, the Nashville attack was the largest domestic terrorist bomb detonation in 25

I’ve appeared on 100+ podcasts and webcasts for other people, so for 2021 we’re going to join the fun! Our podcast is free for everyone to access, and you can grab the mp3 file below, or you can subscribe at:

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ZXOnreiGGiUtuGHzbin6d

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/epsilon-theory-podcast/id1107682538

In episode #2 of the Epsilon Theory podcast, Rusty and I have a conversation with Brian Portnoy, author of The Geometry of Wealth, about the role of money in shaping a life of meaning.

How do we give better advice about money to others … and to ourselves?

ET Podcast #2 – Personal FinanceIf you’d like to sign up for a free email to let you know what we’ve published in the prior week, please go here. We have about

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This commentary is being provided to you as general information only and should not be taken as investment advice. The opinions expressed in these materials represent the personal views of the author(s). It is not investment research or a research recommendation, as it does not constitute substantive research or analysis. Any action that you take as a result of information contained in this document is ultimately your responsibility. Epsilon Theory will not accept liability for any loss or damage, including without limitation to any loss of profit, which may arise directly or indirectly from use of or reliance on such information. Consult your investment advisor before making any investment decisions. It must be noted, that no one can accurately predict the future of the

DISCLOSURES

This commentary is being provided to you as general information only and should not be taken as investment advice. The opinions expressed in these materials represent the personal views of the author(s). It is not investment research or a research recommendation, as it does not constitute substantive research or analysis. Any action that you take as a result of information contained in this document is ultimately your responsibility. Epsilon Theory will not accept liability for any loss or damage, including without limitation to any loss of profit, which may arise directly or indirectly from use of or reliance on such information. Consult your investment advisor before making any investment decisions. It must be noted, that no one can accurately predict the future of the

I’ve appeared on 100+ podcasts and webcasts for other people, so for 2021 we’re going to join the fun! This kick-off webcast is free for everyone to access, as are our short-form Zeitgeist notes. We have a leaky paywall on our public long-form content (2 free reads per month).

If you’d like to learn more about our subscription options, including unlimited access to more than 1,000 published notes, private content not available on the public-facing website, and engagement with an active community of truth-seeking investors and citizens, please go here.

If you’d like to sign up for a free email to let you know what we’ve published in the prior week, please go here. We have about 100,000 email recipients, and your contact information will never be shared with anyone.

In this

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This commentary is being provided to you as general information only and should not be taken as investment advice. The opinions expressed in these materials represent the personal views of the author(s). It is not investment research or a research recommendation, as it does not constitute substantive research or analysis. Any action that you take as a result of information contained in this document is ultimately your responsibility. Epsilon Theory will not accept liability for any loss or damage, including without limitation to any loss of profit, which may arise directly or indirectly from use of or reliance on such information. Consult your investment advisor before making any investment decisions. It must be noted, that no one can accurately predict the future of the

To receive a free full-text email of The Zeitgeist whenever we publish to the website, please sign up here. You’ll get two or three of these emails every week, and your email will not be shared with anyone. Ever.

Love’s heralds should be thoughts,Which ten times faster glide than the sun’s beams,Driving back shadows over louring hills:Therefore do nimble-pinion’d doves draw love,And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.Romeo and Juliet, Act 2 Scene 5

That’s how Shakespeare described the speed of thought – ten times faster than the speed of light.

He was talking about thoughts of love, of course.

Thoughts of a stock market rally move even faster than that.

The word selection here in this Wall Street Journal headline is a masterclass in narrative

Epsilon Theory PDF Download (paid subscribers only): AMA? BITFD!

If you’re a medical doctor, you probably received an email like this in recent days from the American Medical Association, a tax-exempt not-for-profit corporation organized under section 501(c)(6) of the US tax code:

Subject: Dr. XYZ, don’t wait to get the PPE you need from the AMADear Dr. XYZ,Since the start of the pandemic, physicians across the country have gone above and beyond to keep patients safe. Yet after eight months, many are still unable to get enough PPE for their practices. We’ve urged the federal government to act, and now, we’re stepping in.The American Medical Association is collaborating with Project N95, a not-for-profit organization, to reserve quality-certified PPE for AMA members to

DISCLOSURESThis commentary is being provided to you as general information only and should not be taken as investment advice. The opinions expressed in these materials represent the personal views of the author(s). It is not investment research or a research recommendation, as it does not constitute substantive research or analysis. Any action that you take as a result of information contained in this document is ultimately your responsibility. Epsilon Theory will not accept liability for any loss or damage, including without limitation to any loss of profit, which may arise directly or indirectly from use of or reliance on such information. Consult your investment advisor before making any investment decisions. It must be noted, that no one can accurately predict the future of the market

Epsilon Theory PDF Download (paid subscribers only): The Grifters, Chapter 3 – Election PredictionThat’s Nate Silver, founder and face of election “modeler” FiveThirtyEight, performing his traditional “Awkshually, we weren’t wrong” dance after mangling yet another national election.Haha. No, that’s a falsehood, as the fact checkers would say. That claim was made with no evidence, as an ABC News reporter would say.In truth, this is a picture of Nate Silver speaking at the “ABC Leadership Breakfast” during Advertising Week XII. Of course Advertising Week uses the same numbering system as the SuperBowl ™. That would be 2015 in normie text, about a year prior to FiveThirtyEight’s mangling of the prior national election.You will only see Nate Silver on ABC News and other ABC media properties

DISCLOSURESThis commentary is being provided to you as general information only and should not be taken as investment advice. The opinions expressed in these materials represent the personal views of the author(s). It is not investment research or a research recommendation, as it does not constitute substantive research or analysis. Any action that you take as a result of information contained in this document is ultimately your responsibility. Epsilon Theory will not accept liability for any loss or damage, including without limitation to any loss of profit, which may arise directly or indirectly from use of or reliance on such information. Consult your investment advisor before making any investment decisions. It must be noted, that no one can accurately predict the future of the market

DISCLOSURESThis commentary is being provided to you as general information only and should not be taken as investment advice. The opinions expressed in these materials represent the personal views of the author(s). It is not investment research or a research recommendation, as it does not constitute substantive research or analysis. Any action that you take as a result of information contained in this document is ultimately your responsibility. Epsilon Theory will not accept liability for any loss or damage, including without limitation to any loss of profit, which may arise directly or indirectly from use of or reliance on such information. Consult your investment advisor before making any investment decisions. It must be noted, that no one can accurately predict the future of the market

To receive a free full-text email of The Zeitgeist whenever we publish to the website, please sign up here. You’ll get two or three of these emails every week, and your email will not be shared with anyone. Ever.If there’s a single common thread in everything we write about politics here at Epsilon Theory, it’s that we believe our domestic political games have been transformed from coordination games, where positive-sum gameplay is at least possible, into pure competition games, where only zero-sum gameplay exists. We believe that has happened without any change in the “rules” of our domestic political games, but through the actions of political entrepreneurs who “defected” from the way the game was traditionally played. Once one political entrepreneur enjoyed success from this defection,

DISCLOSURESThis commentary is being provided to you as general information only and should not be taken as investment advice. The opinions expressed in these materials represent the personal views of the author(s). It is not investment research or a research recommendation, as it does not constitute substantive research or analysis. Any action that you take as a result of information contained in this document is ultimately your responsibility. Epsilon Theory will not accept liability for any loss or damage, including without limitation to any loss of profit, which may arise directly or indirectly from use of or reliance on such information. Consult your investment advisor before making any investment decisions. It must be noted, that no one can accurately predict the future of the market

“Hours after he had boasted on CNBC that the virus was contained in the United States and “it’s pretty close to airtight,” Mr. Kudlow delivered a more ambiguous private message.Mr. Callanan reported that numerous Trump administration officials — Mr. Kudlow, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and economists at the Council of Economic Advisers, who had given the presentation at the White House on Feb. 24 — expressed a greater degree of alarm about the coronavirus than the administration was saying publicly.To many of the investors who received or heard about the memo, it was the first significant sign of skepticism among Trump administration officials about their ability to contain the virus. It also provided a hint of the fallout that was to come, said one major investor who was briefed on it:

DISCLOSURESThis commentary is being provided to you as general information only and should not be taken as investment advice. The opinions expressed in these materials represent the personal views of the author(s). It is not investment research or a research recommendation, as it does not constitute substantive research or analysis. Any action that you take as a result of information contained in this document is ultimately your responsibility. Epsilon Theory will not accept liability for any loss or damage, including without limitation to any loss of profit, which may arise directly or indirectly from use of or reliance on such information. Consult your investment advisor before making any investment decisions. It must be noted, that no one can accurately predict the future of the market

To receive a free full-text email of The Zeitgeist whenever we publish to the website, please sign up here. You’ll get two or three of these emails every week, and your email will not be shared with anyone. Ever.Ex-cardinal and frustrated money manager Giovanni Angelo BecciuThree years earlier [2015], part of a €528m Vatican portfolio “derived from donations” bought structured notes containing CDS as part of a bet that Hertz would not default on its debts by April 2020, the documents show. The company filed for bankruptcy the following month, giving the Holy See a narrow escape on the investment, which paid out in full.Other investments made by managers for the Secretariat appointed by Cardinal Becciu include financing the 2019 film Rocketman — a biopic of the musician Elton John —

DISCLOSURESThis commentary is being provided to you as general information only and should not be taken as investment advice. The opinions expressed in these materials represent the personal views of the author(s). It is not investment research or a research recommendation, as it does not constitute substantive research or analysis. Any action that you take as a result of information contained in this document is ultimately your responsibility. Epsilon Theory will not accept liability for any loss or damage, including without limitation to any loss of profit, which may arise directly or indirectly from use of or reliance on such information. Consult your investment advisor before making any investment decisions. It must be noted, that no one can accurately predict the future of the market

Epsilon Theory PDF Download (paid subscribers only): Fell on Black DaysSo what you wanted to see good
Has made you blind
And what you wanted to be yours
Has made it mine

‘Cause I fell on black days
I fell on black days

I sure don’t mind a change

— "Fell on Black Days" (1994)I was driving the other week and switched the radio station over to Lithium, the grunge rock channel on Sirius, and the info panel showed that I should expect a Soundgarden song called “Fell on Black Days”. As I recalled (and the title implies), this song has the depressing lyrics of pretty much all Soundgarden/Chris Cornell songs, and I remember thinking that this would be a pretty good theme song for the year. Covid and the election and protests and urban violence and massive wildfires and brain-eating amoebas in

To receive a free full-text email of The Zeitgeist whenever we publish to the website, please sign up here. You’ll get two or three of these emails every week, and your email will not be shared with anyone. Ever.It’s been a bad few years for investors in shale companies, but a pretty good few years for shale company CEOs.The leaders of U.S. shale companies received some of the largest executive pay increases in corporate America, even as their shareholders lost billions of dollars, a Wall Street Journal analysis has found.There’s something about Wall Street Journal headshots that make you look guilty.Maybe it’s the black-and-white, maybe it’s the uncanny valley stippling, but whatever it is, I have no doubt that this is why the Wall Street Journal editors used this two-by-two composite of

DISCLOSURESThis commentary is being provided to you as general information only and should not be taken as investment advice. The opinions expressed in these materials represent the personal views of the author(s). It is not investment research or a research recommendation, as it does not constitute substantive research or analysis. Any action that you take as a result of information contained in this document is ultimately your responsibility. Epsilon Theory will not accept liability for any loss or damage, including without limitation to any loss of profit, which may arise directly or indirectly from use of or reliance on such information. Consult your investment advisor before making any investment decisions. It must be noted, that no one can accurately predict the future of the market

To receive a free full-text email of The Zeitgeist whenever we publish to the website, please sign up here. You’ll get two or three of these emails every week, and your email will not be shared with anyone. Ever.‘Game of Thrones’ creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss are set to adapt the hit book trilogy for Netflix. The Senators’ accuse the streamer of “normalizing” China’s extra-judicial detention of over one million Muslims in Xinjiang, referencing past comments from the books’ author Liu Cixin supporting the program.Fact #1: The Three Body Problem book trilogy by Liu Cixin is a fantastic work of art. IMO it’s the most important work of science fiction since Asimov’s Foundation trilogy back in the 1950s, and I’m thrilled that Netflix is adapting it into a television/movie series (less

DISCLOSURESThis commentary is being provided to you as general information only and should not be taken as investment advice. The opinions expressed in these materials represent the personal views of the author(s). It is not investment research or a research recommendation, as it does not constitute substantive research or analysis. Any action that you take as a result of information contained in this document is ultimately your responsibility. Epsilon Theory will not accept liability for any loss or damage, including without limitation to any loss of profit, which may arise directly or indirectly from use of or reliance on such information. Consult your investment advisor before making any investment decisions. It must be noted, that no one can accurately predict the future of the market