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What do we call a society that\u2014from Wall Street to Main Street, from Washington, D.C. to your local city council chambers\u2014seems to have been uprooted from facts and time-tested fundamentals, and is being driven instead by whatever stories can be sold as truth? Ben Hunt calls it \u201cFiat World,\u201d a world declared into existence.\nA former hedge fund manager, in 2013 Ben Hunt created Epsilon Theory, a newsletter and website that has become essential reading for more than 100,000 professional investors and allocators across 180 countries. He\u2019s also our very special guest on this week\u2019s episode of the Strong Towns podcast.\nBen tells Strong Towns president Chuck Marohn that massive debt and dislocation, social media, and the 24-hour news cycle (among other forces) have helped shape a world in which everything is presented by declaration. We have to be in this world, Ben says, but \u201cwe don\u2019t have to give them our heart. We can maintain a distance of mind, an autonomy of mind, so that we see clearly what\u2019s happening...We\u2019re not going to be the suckers at the table.\u201d\nBen and Chuck discuss some of the new rules\u2014in the economy, media, and beyond\u2014that must be understood, challenged, and changed. They talk about why capital markets and housing markets are too important to be left to the investors. \nThey talk too about the \u201czombification\u201d of cities, in which towns and cities are all unwittingly doing the same self-destructive things. Ben and Chuck discuss why this won\u2019t be fixed from the top down and how local leaders can make the right decisions in a Fiat World. We also get an update from Ben on how Epsilon Theory readers have helped distribute N95 and N95-equivalent masks to healthcare professionals and emergency responders through a kind of \u201cunderground\u201d PPE pipeline.\nListen to this wide-ranging conversation and you\u2019ll start to see why, back in May, Chuck recommended Ben Hunt and Epsilon Theory to help make sense of our new reality. Chuck wrote: \u201cNo matter how badly we want to believe it\u2014and even I, at times, want to believe it\u2014seeing beyond the narrative, realizing its inherent falsehoods, is the most important and empowering first step we can take.\u201d\nAdditional Show Notes\nEpsilon Theory\n\u201cFiat World,\u201d by Ben Hunt\nEpsilon PPE Requests\nBen Hunt (Twitter)\nChuck Marohn (Twitter)