1/ This is an excellent take on a broader phenomenon that I've begun to refer to as "market nihilism," a philosophy that treats objects of speculation as though they were intrinsically worthless. ft.com/content/8732e8…
2/ The idea that prices can diverge from fundamentals or that fundamentals no longer matter is not new; it's something we often see during the late stages of a bull market. What appears unique about the present moment is the indifference with which investors are pricing assets. 
3/ We see price movements characteristic of a raging bull market without the accompanying euphoria. "...all that remains," as Jean Baudrillard writes, "is the fascination for desertlike and indifferent forms, for the very operation of the system that annihilates us."
4/ It's this quality of "indifference" that I find most striking about today's bull market. It's the manner with which we "shrug things off," be they the unexpected assignation of an Iranian general, coronavirus, or the rising popularity of socialism before a general election.
5/ The rationalization that governments will "fix the mess" and that central banks will "buy the dip" channels a deeper sense of existential meaninglessness that seems to have spread throughout the Western world like a virus. Is there a connection between the indifference of...
6/ ...markets and the apathy of the electorate? I would argue yes, there is. Whether it's the decline of religion, the dismantling of the nation state, or the commodification of the self, something feels lacking. Mike Green uses the term "learned helplessness" to describe the...
7/ ...type of practices that modern society seems to encourage. "Theories of 'behavioral' errors claim we cannot trust our decisions. These are wrong. We will make errors if we make decisions; but the far greater risk in aggregate is that we stop making individual decisions...
8/ ...leaving us at risk to collective failure and the eventual depredations of authoritarianism." Whether it's in the form of systematic passive investing strategies, autonomous driving, or virtual assistants, we've already ceded so much control over...
9/ ...to our machines that one may wonder if, as the Unabomber Ted Kazinsky writes, "People won’t be able to just turn the machine off, because they will be so de- pendent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide." washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nationa…
10/ I've explored these themes in various forms on @HiddenForcesPod whether in markets with @profplum99, politics with Michael Lind, philosophy with @platobooktour, culture with @johannhari101, or on my own with episodes like this one. hiddenforces.io/podcasts/demet…
11/ This sense of nihilism and its impact on the health and viability of our markets, governments, and societies seems under appreciated; it's something I look forward to exploring further on @HiddenForcesPod in 2020. hiddenforces.io
