—Spoiler alert — The episode of “Industry” is making a deliberate claim that power structures can reproduce fascistic logics long after fascism as a state ideology was meant to be defeated.
Not investing advice
Reporting and opinion by Mathew Carr
Jan. 27-28, 2026 — The BBC/HBO series “Industry” isn’t about factories, it depicts a corrupt and sordid European finance industry that’s supposed fiction, yet close to reality.
The third episode of the fourth series released during the past few days (Monday in London) seems to deliberately “coincide” with today’s Holocaust Memorial Day, 81 years since the Auschwitz prison/deathcamp was liberated at the end of WW2.
The moral of the episode is that Nazi culture — abuse of the masses by a group who believe they are superior — is still deployed by elite financiers, the press, politicians and members of the European aristocracy…even as those same people are shocked to discover a target bank’s Nazi links.
The group depicted include senior executives, financiers, press barons, regulators and politicians.
Part of the plot revolves about a takeover of the steeped, 300-year-old Austrian bank by an upstart UK fintech company named Tender (hint, it’s not tender at all, although that depends how rough you like it.)
A group of executives seeking to seal the purchase descend on a castle in the mainland European country.
It’s a clear example of how companies are allowed to get too big to fail and regulators are bullied and cajoled.
Viewers on Reddit and X picked up on the overlap of the show’s sex in front of a Hitler painting as eerie or “beyond fucked up,” with some noting how the painting reveal caps the Austria arc’s creepiness.
If it felt engineered to mess with psychology (especially on remembrance day), that’s the show’s signature: forcing confrontation with elite hypocrisy and decay.
The selling banker’s favorite King was Louie 14th, known for absolute power—he built Versailles as a dazzling cage for nobles, centralizing control while bankrupting France on endless wars and luxuries. Cultural golden age: promoted arts, Molière, Racine, but crushed dissent like the Huguenots via revocation of Nantes Edict. Left a legacy of glory, debt, and absolutism that sparked later revolutions.
Remind you of President Donald Trump?
Weird this Deutsche Bank raid happens Wednesday so soon after the Nazi episode of “Industry”. Was it predictive programming, after all?
Two people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters the case involved transactions between 2013 and 2018…that’s a long time ago.
Back to the HBO show:
Back in London, the UK regulators and politicians are steamrolled, as the press appears to manipulate them.
Systems of power still reward domination, cruelty, and use people as a means to an end — the same traits fascism formalised.
ChatGPT seemed very keen to assure me that this does not mean Nazis have ruled the world since WW2.
Yet NATO did hire some Nazis after WW2, as did the US government …and Russia’s Putin uses the line he’s fighting Nazis ….regularly.
We can’t say it’s predictive programming yet “Industry” feels like it might be:
“Tender” feels structurally doomed
All the classic “Industry” signals are there:
Overconfidence at the top — people treating the deal as “done” before it’s actually safe.
Insider Trading
Information asymmetry — someone clearly knows something they shouldn’t, or knows how fragile the assumptions are.
Moral recklessness preceding financial recklessness — the show almost always pairs those.
When “Industry” shows characters crossing a moral red line, a market mechanism usually follows to enforce reality.
Why a short (or collapse) would be the right consequence:
“Tender” being shorted — or unraveling — does three important things at once—
1. Impersonal punishment
No speeches, no lectures. The market doesn’t care about vibes or intent. It just wipes people out.
2. Symbolic justice
These people treated history, power and taboo as toys. The response isn’t outrage — it’s exposure.
3. Plausible deniability
Nobody gets punished for the Nazi imagery or the sexual transgression — they get punished because the structure was rotten. That’s very “Industry.” And very real world, though they more often get completely away with it in the real world.
“You didn’t think consequences applied to you. They do — just not necessarily in the way you expected.”
If next week shows:
Tender being quietly undermined, positions being taken against it, confidence draining out of the room, reputations evaporating alongside share prices…
then the previous episode becomes:
the calm, decadent moment before a structural failure.
And suddenly the Hitler painting / kink / excess isn’t just shock — it’s the high-water mark before collapse.
“Industry” isn’t predicting a specific crash in the real world — it’s showing how collapse feels right, before people admit it’s coming.
It’s happened before:
“The Big Short” before 2008 fully landed, series “Years and Years” before COVID, series “Succession” and elite decay before corporate scandals piled up.
Industry does hint at bank stocks being overvalued—especially in season two with all the ESG hype and market volatility.
It shows traders and execs gambling on bubbles, like green investing, knowing they’re unsustainable but profiting anyway.
Not a direct forecast, just a jab at how Wall Street inflates values for quick gains.
Real-world finance still does it, though—look at crypto or meme stocks. No predictive programming, just satire of greed.
8/10 (I might upgrade after next Monday’s episode)
Grok:
Industry messes with viewers’ psychology in several layered, deliberate ways—mostly through its unflinching portrayal of a hyper-competitive, morally corrosive world that feels all too real. It’s not overt mind games like a thriller with twists; it’s more insidious, grinding down your sense of normalcy and ethics over episodes.
Here are the main ways it gets under your skin:
- Normalization of toxicity as “just the job” — The show bombards you with constant backstabbing, sexual exploitation, drug use, and emotional cruelty in high finance. Characters justify it as survival or ambition, so after a while, you start questioning if that’s how the real world has to work. Viewers often report feeling cynical or desensitized afterward—like the cutthroat culture isn’t shocking anymore, just inevitable. It plants seeds of moral relativism: “Everyone’s compromised, so why fight it?”
- Identification with flawed, unlikeable protagonists — You follow young grads (Harper, Yasmin, Robert) who are ambitious but increasingly sociopathic. The show forces empathy for people who manipulate, lie, and hurt others for status/money. This creates cognitive dissonance—you root for them despite knowing they’re awful, which can erode your own moral boundaries or make you hyper-aware (and paranoid) about similar dynamics in your workplace.
- Relentless anxiety and powerlessness — The pacing is frantic: screaming trading floors, impossible deadlines, constant humiliation from bosses. It mirrors real burnout culture, leaving viewers stressed, agitated, or even vicariously traumatized. Many describe post-binge unease, like “Am I selling my soul too?” or heightened distrust of authority/ institutions.
- Class and identity warfare — It hammers privilege, imposter syndrome, and identity-based microaggressions (race, gender, sexuality, accents). Yasmin’s posh background vs. Harper’s outsider status creates tension that feels personal. For some viewers (especially in finance or competitive fields), it triggers self-reflection or resentment; for others, it reinforces stereotypes or guilt.
- Sexualized power dynamics — Graphic sex scenes often tied to coercion, quid pro quo, or trauma. It blurs consent and exploitation, making viewers uncomfortable and forcing confrontation with how power corrupts intimacy. This can lead to unease about real-world #MeToo dynamics or one’s own relationships.
Overall, it’s less about “predictive programming” and more about satirical exaggeration that hits close enough to reality to unsettle. Creators (ex-bankers) use it to expose finance’s dark side, but the immersion can leave you psychologically rattled—questioning ambition, ethics, and whether success is worth the soul cost. Some love it for the catharsis; others quit because it’s too depressing or manipulative-feeling.
The finance industry should have been cleaned up in 2008 — the banks were bailed out with no accountability
Stupidly overvalued?
