The Absurd Theatre of Markets: When External Forces Shape Our Economic Destiny

The Sisyphean Nature of Modern Commerce

There is something profoundly absurd about the state of our markets today, a quality that would be almost comical if it weren’t so desperately human. Consider the curious case of Moonpig—not the greeting card company watching investors retreat like tides from its shores, but its digital namesake, a cryptocurrency that has achieved a $40 million valuation through nothing more substantial than artificial intelligence-generated imagery and the collective fever dream we call “meme culture.”

This duality speaks to something deeper about our condition. Here we have Liontrust Investment Partners reducing their stake in Moonpig Group Plc from 11.17% to 9.97%, a calculated retreat based on “valuation metrics and financial risks”—the language of rational actors in a rational world. Yet simultaneously, traders pour millions into a digital token bearing the same name, propelled not by metrics but by the intoxible possibility of meaning where none should exist.

The Tariff as Metaphor for Human Limitation

President Trump’s threat of a 25% tariff on iPhones manufactured outside American borders reveals another facet of our economic absurdity. Tim Cook, that most careful of corporate stewards, finds himself caught between the immovable object of global supply chains and the irresistible force of nationalist economics. The president claims Cook “was aware of this expectation but has not taken action to comply”—as if the CEO of the world’s most valuable company could simply will into existence the industrial infrastructure of a nation.

This is not merely about smartphones or trade policy. It is about the human impulse to impose order through force, to believe that threats and ultimatums can reshape the fundamental geography of production that took decades to establish. The consumer, of course, will bear the burden—as consumers always do—paying higher prices for the privilege of participating in someone else’s political theater.

The deeper tragedy lies not in the tariff itself, but in the illusion that such measures represent control over forces that are, by their very nature, beyond any single actor’s dominion. Apple’s supply chain, like the global economy itself, is a creature of such complexity that even its architects cannot fully comprehend its behavior.

The Athletic Metaphor for Market Vulnerability

Perhaps the most poignant example comes from an unexpected source: the Vancouver Whitecaps, whose recent 2-2 draw against Valour has exposed the fragility that lurks beneath surface success. Here is a team performing admirably in both MLS and continental competition, yet undermined by “limited player depth”—a phrase that could describe any number of modern enterprises.

The Whitecaps’ situation mirrors that of countless businesses operating at the margins of their capacity. Success breeds its own vulnerabilities; excellence becomes a prison of expectations. The team’s “temporary slump” before the CONCACAF Champions Cup final serves as a microcosm of how external pressures—injuries, fatigue, the simple entropy of human performance—can destabilize even the most carefully constructed systems.

Meanwhile, in Steinbach, auto dealers celebrate “Feel Good Friday” with genuine warmth, promoting local businesses and expressing gratitude to customers. This small gesture of community connection stands in stark contrast to the grand machinations of global markets, yet it may represent the most authentic response to our economic condition.

Toward a Philosophy of Economic Acceptance

What emerges from these disparate trends is a portrait of an economic system perpetually at war with itself, where rational analysis coexists with irrational exuberance, where political will collides with economic reality, where success and failure dance together in patterns too complex for prediction.

The investors pulling back from Moonpig Group while others rush toward Moonpig crypto represent the same fundamental human impulse: the search for meaning in chaos, for profit in uncertainty. Neither approach is inherently superior; both are expressions of our refusal to accept that markets, like existence itself, may be fundamentally absurd.

The question is not whether we can control these external forces—clearly, we cannot. Tim Cook cannot relocate Apple’s supply chain through sheer will any more than the Whitecaps can manufacture player depth from thin air. The question is how we choose to respond to our limitations.

The Revolt Against Economic Determinism

In the face of such absurdity, we must choose our response carefully. We can rage against the dying of the light, like Trump threatening tariffs against the tide of globalization. We can retreat into metrics and analysis, like Liontrust reducing its positions based on “financial risks.” Or we can find a third way—the path of the absurd hero who continues to push the boulder up the mountain not because it will stay there, but because the act of pushing is itself meaningful.

The auto dealers in Steinbach, celebrating their community with simple gratitude, may have discovered something profound: that our response to external forces matters more than the forces themselves. In choosing to express appreciation rather than anxiety, to build connection rather than extract value, they enact a small rebellion against the deterministic logic of pure economics.

This is not to romanticize small-town commerce or dismiss the very real impacts of investment decisions and trade policies. Rather, it is to suggest that our humanity lies not in our ability to control these forces, but in our capacity to find dignity in our response to them.

The markets will continue their absurd dance, cryptocurrencies will rise and fall on the whims of collective imagination, and politicians will make threats they cannot fulfill. But somewhere, in board rooms and trading floors, in auto dealerships and sports stadiums, human beings will continue to make choices that define not just their economic fate, but their essential character.

In the end, perhaps that is enough.