This is Trend Following Radio, where great thinking comes alive.

Nobel Prize winners, legendary traders, bestselling authors, and the pros that know what drive us irrational human beings.

I am your host, Michael Covel.

Not filtered, raw, honest.

That's my passion.

My guest today is Ben Hunt.

This has Ben's second appearance on my show.

He is the chief risk officer of salient partners.

He's also the author of Epsilon Theory, a really cool way of looking at capital markets through the lens of game theory.

I always enjoy my conversations with Ben.

His letter is excellent.

I hope you enjoy this conversation.

There's a great quote that I want to read of yours,

but once you leave the cozy confines of the mutual coordination Nash equilibrium, you can never go back. Instead, it's an inexorable one-way street to the

other Nash equilibrium mutual defection. It's just math and human nature. And I wouldn't want to bet against that combination.

I'm going to unpack that with you in a moment, but I want to add a few more thoughts for me,

right here at the beginning, what I really love about your work is you're not trying to tell me,

you're not trying to tell the audience, hey, my name is Ben Hunt. I know exactly what's going to happen

tomorrow. And this market, this market, this market, no. But what you are doing is you're painting a picture using game theory

that ties together an understanding of economics, politics, international relations, state power,

to get people to understand that if everything that you're saying is true, can there be any

worse strategy, any worse investing

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