Substack Library
GlossaryUndermoney
April 16, 2022Undermoney is both the name of a new novel and a term invented by this week’s podcast guest, Jay Newman. Jay defines the term as money “which is unknown publicly but that controls individuals and events.” Given the theme of this Substack, I was of course intrigued to speak with him. You can hear the full episode here.
Jay is a lawyer, writer and investor, publicly known as one of the people at Elliot Management that, among other endeavors, successfully sued governments that failed to repay their debt. You can read his bio here. Suffice to say the novel he created—which mixes espionage, politics and finance—is written from the perspective of a person who has seen some things first hand.
Our conversation ran over an hour but I didn’t feel there was fat to cut and my producer, Dave Manahan, agreed, so we let it run. Undermoney, and money in general, is, I’ve slowly come to realize, a tricky topic. Money is something fundamental, like food or shelter. You notice it acutely when you are short of it. Yet, money is also hard to define precisely—is it gold or dollars or a stock?—and its value constantly shifts. Moreover, how much money we have influences how we think.
In our conversation, Jay spoke about how extreme wealth stratification is both self-reinforcing and behavior distorting. It’s logical we seek wealth to try to care of our families, to gain safety. But excessive wealth also isolates us into rarified bubbles that then feed political instability that in turn imperil the safety we sought to establish.
The challenge, as always, is to try to see reality as accurately as possible given our own blindspots. The existence of undermoney adds to the challenge because it touches all of us. Fiction can play an invaluable role in helping us see the truth. Inventing characters and situations and inner monologues may be closer to truth than a supposedly dispassionate reading of objective facts.
I hope you enjoy the podcast and please reach out with any questions. I learn a lot from your responses. The more this Substack grows, the more it creates a community of like-minded, curious people trying to find our way through a confusing, beautiful sometimes painful world. One last note. I am aware some of these notes go out, despite my best efforts, with typos. I loathe typos and do my best to eliminate them. If you see one, give me a shout and I’ll promptly correct the electronic version.