Hidden Forces

In Episode 372 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas tries to make sense of the recent assassination attempt against Donald Trump by focusing on (1) what we know so far about what actually happened on July 13th, (2) the public’s reaction to the events of that day, and (3) the implications of the shooting for the 2024 election and the country’s future.  This monologue explores (1) deep state conspiracy theories, (2) the role of aesthetics and narrative in rewriting history, (3) dominance hierarchies and capitulation to the authority of the alpha, and (4) alternate reality games. Demetri also touches on how recent events could influence the election, the impending replacement of Joe Biden, the potential for future attacks, and the economic and geopolitical implications of a Trump presidency. You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces, you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 07/18/2024

In Episode 371 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Henry Olsen, author of “Working Class Republican” and host of “Beyond the Polls” about the unprecedented circumstances surrounding Joe Biden’s candidacy for the 2024 Democratic Presidential nomination, who will replace him, and why Donald Trump is well-positioned to win in 2024. Demetri and Henry Olsen examine the unprecedented circumstances surrounding Joe Biden’s recent debate performance and the pressure mounting on him to withdraw from the race, including rumors that the U.S. President may in fact have Parkinson’s disease or some other type of neurological disorder that disqualifies him from running in 2024. They speculate about who may be making policy decisions in the White House outside of the president himself, why so many Democrats and members of the press appeared surprised by the President’s debate performance, Biden’s potential replacement, and when (and how) his replacement will be chosen. In the second hour, Henry Olsen offers his opinion, backed by polls and decades of political experience, on what the 2024 election will ultimately be about and how this election will be remembered in American history. He and Demetri discuss the role immigration will play in this election, the possibility of a U.S. withdrawal from NATO under Donald Trump, the evolution of Trump’s foreign policy since leaving office, the people who would staff the Trump Whitehouse and cabinet in 2024, and why Trump’s likely choice for Vice President is so important. You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces, you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 07/10/2024

In Episode 370 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak, the Global Chief Economist at BCG and the author of “Shocks, Crises, and False Alarms,” about how to assess macroeconomic risk without relying on broken models, pervasive doom-mongering, and whipsawing data prints that have little to do with the structural drivers of economic and financial change. The shocks and crises of recent years are a rude awakening for executives and investors who have spent the last 40 years operating in a relatively benign macroeconomic and political environment. This period of geopolitical convergence characterized by increased trade and capital flows, lengthening business cycles, declining interest rates, and stable inflation is over, forcing corporate leaders and investors alike to recognize that macroeconomic risk is now something that needs to be actively managed. In the first hour, Demetri asks Philipp to explain his core framework of economic eclecticism, which relies on contextual flexibility, situational judgment, and rational optimism that neither ignores tail risks nor drags them to the center of the distribution. They examine four case studies and their associated narratives to help us understand why so many predictions fail to materialize and how a more eclectic approach to macroeconomic risk assessment could have helped investors and business leaders avoid these pitfalls and take advantage of the economic and financial opportunities created by these events in real-time.  In the second hour, Philipp and Demetri discuss the role of government and central bank stimulus as a variable that needs to be actively managed by investors and business executives. They also discuss how to assess the risks associated with a U.S. government debt crisis, the integrity of the U.S. Dollar as a global reserve asset, and how to assess the prospects of technologically induced productivity growth, including AI-driven improvements to a service-oriented economy like the U.S. You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces, you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 07/01/2024

In Episode 369 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Jeffrey Sachs, a world-renowned economist, bestselling author, and professor at Columbia University, where he was the former director of The Earth Institute. He is also one of the most reputable critics of U.S. foreign policy and the ‘Deep State’, especially as it pertains to the ongoing war in Ukraine and U.S. relations towards Moscow since the end of the Cold War. Demetri developed an extensive outline for this conversation, the scope of which vastly exceeded the time allotted for it. Dr. Sachs will be coming back on to complete this discussion because it is arguably one of the most important conversations that any policymaker, politician, and media pundit should be having at this moment. In the first hour of this multi-part conversation, Kofinas asks Jeffrey Sachs about his career in public policy, including his unique experience working directly with the most important foreign policy figures of the late 20th century. These figures include fmr. Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, U.S. President Bill Clinton, and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The two have an opportunity to touch on the 'deep state' (or national security state as it's also known), the history of the CIA, including any potential role it may have had in J.F.K.’s assassination, and Jeffrey Sachs’ central critique of U.S. foreign policy, both during the Cold War and after the fall of the U.S.S.R. Part II of this conversation, which Demetri hopes to release soon, will dig deeper into the deep state and its influence on contemporary U.S. foreign policy. Demetri also hopes to discuss U.S. policy vis-à-vis post-Soviet Russia in the 1990s and the years leading up to both the 2014 and 2022 invasions of Ukraine. American policy toward China, America’s Middle East Policy, Industrial Policy, the continued threat of Terrorism, and the steps Jeffrey Sachs believes that we should take to reform the U.S. government, revitalize our economy, and reformulate our foreign policy will be topics of discussion as well. You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces, you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 06/26/2024

In Episode 368 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Brian Janous. Brian is the Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Cloverleaf Infrastructure. With over 20 years of experience in the electricity and data center industries, Brian is the perfect person to talk to about the growth in electricity demand being forecasted by North American grid planners as they try to get ahead of several converging trends in the energy space, including the rapid buildout of AI data centers, the onshoring of new industrial capacity, and the introduction of more intermittent sources of energy like wind and solar onto the grid. The first hour begins with a conversation about electric power and what we mean when we talk about “The Grid.” What are the important pieces—both in terms of operating concerns, like private utilities and regulatory bodies, as well as physical systems like power stations, electrical substations, and transmission lines—that comprise the electric grid? How do all of these pieces come together to support the functioning of a modern economy and what are the challenges inherent in trying to update and expand such a complex and interconnected system? In the second part of their conversation, Kofinas and Janous discuss what the planning and procurement process for new data centers looks like from the perspective of tech companies and what sorts of opportunities may exist to invest around this anticipated boom in data center development and operations. We also discuss how a precipitous rise in electricity demand driven by a boom in data center usage without a concurrent increase in new capacity to service it could lead to substantial cost increases for households and a series of hard choices for policymakers and politicians facing angry constituents in the years to come. You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces, you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 06/17/2024 You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces, you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 06/17/2024

In Episode 367 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Spencer Jakab and Andrew Left. Jakab is an award-winning financial journalist who edits the Wall Street Journal’s “Heard on the Street” column. He is also the author of “The Revolution That Wasn't,” a book about the meme stock craze that overtook the video game retailer GameStop in 2021 and the heroes and villains, like activist short-seller Andrew Left, who made that story so captivating and powerful. As the founder of Citron Research, Andrew famously bet against GameStop during the mania of 2021, only to get squeezed out of his position as the stock rallied to the unimaginable heights of $483 per share. Last week, amidst the excitement and uproar of Keith Gill’s anticipated return as ‘Roaring Kitty,’ the hero of Wall Street Bets and the face of the GameStop meme craze, Andrew announced that he was at it again, taking a new short position in the video game retailer, albeit at a significantly reduced size from the one he was forced to close three years ago. Demetri devotes the episode’s first hour to recapping the GameStop meme craze and how it relates to the concept of Financial Nihilism that he developed in 2019 and about which he began publishing episodes in early 2020. He, Andrew, and Spencer discuss the role of narrative investing, the characters that make up a good financial story, and how those character archetypes come together to generate interest and excitement around a given company’s stock or crypto token in the hopes that it could lead to life-changing profits, a communal sense of belonging, and a whole lot of fun. In the second hour, Demetri asks Andrew and Spencer if they think that this latest resurgence in the price of GameStop is a late aftershock to the 2021 meme stock mania or if it is a sign of things to come as liquidity ramps higher ahead of the 2024 election. Kofinas also asks Left about how this investment philosophy of financial nihilism has impacted the ability of activist short-sellers like him to operate, what he thinks explains this change in attitude towards the stock market among Millennials and Zoomers, and how the forces driving it are impacting our politics and society at large. You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces, you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 06/12/2024

In Episode 366 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Nick Bostrom, the founding director of the Future of Humanity Institute and Principal Researcher at the Macrostrategy Research Initiative. Nick Bostrom is also the author of Superintelligence, which was the book that ignited a global conversation about what might happen if AI development goes wrong. In his latest book, Deep Utopia, Bostrom attempts to answer the opposite question – what happens if things go right? At such a point of technological maturity driven by further and further advancements in artificial intelligence, humanity will confront challenges that are philosophical and spiritual in nature. In such a “solved world,” as Nick Bostrom describes it, what will be the point of human existence? What will give life meaning? How should we spend our days if we no longer need to work, exercise, or make political choices? And is such a world consistent with human agency and freedom? These are all questions that Kofinas explores in this expansive and thought-provoking conversation. You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces, you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 05/27/2024

In Episode 365 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Lawrence Fossi; Lawrence worked as a commercial trial attorney until 2011 and as the portfolio manager for a family office until 2020. He has written extensively about the automotive company Tesla at Seeking Alpha under the pseudonym “Montana Skeptic” and now publishes at montanaskeptic.substack.com. It’s been three years since we last devoted an episode to the electric car company Telsa and its superstar CEO, Elon Musk. Given the progress that’s been made in EVs in the years since, as well as the recent turmoil at Tesla, Demetri thought it would be a good time to check in on how things are going at America’s largest electric car manufacturer. Demetri’s conversation with Lawrence revolves around a recent ruling in a 2018 shareholder lawsuit brought against Musk and members of the Tesla board over a pay package worth up to $56 billion. While the details of the lawsuit are especially relevant to Tesla shareholders—and you may be one of them if you’re invested in one of the many index funds that own Tesla shares—the spectacle of egregiously excessive executive compensation and the failure of captured boards to exercise fiduciary oversight is part of an alarming trend of corporate corruption that concerns everyone. You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces, you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 05/21/2024

In Episode 364 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Gavekal CEO Louis-Vincent Gave about de-dollarization, U.S. re-industrialization, and his case for a Chinese “deflationary boom” and revaluation of the renminbi. In the first hour of their conversation, Demetri asks Louis-Vincent Gave about the most important trends set to define the investment landscape in the years ahead. Gave argues that the U.S. and Europe are set to undergo a long period of structurally high inflation while China’s economy is set to experience a “deflationary boom” partly driven by rapid advancements in key industries like semiconductor manufacturing and electric vehicles. In the second hour, Gave explains why he believes that the American imperial model of dollar recycling is unsustainable and why de-dollarization is a prerequisite for the re-industrialization of the United States. They also discuss whether or not America needs an industrial policy to reverse the multi-decade financialization of the U.S. economy that has driven up asset prices relative to their underlying income streams, exacerbating the wealth divide while destabilizing the country’s political system. You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces, you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 05/14/2024

In Episode 363 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with investors Paulo Macro and Le Shrub about their investment ideas, frameworks, and processes for identifying investment opportunities and managing risk. In the first hour, Demetri asks Paulo and Le Shrub about some of their respective frameworks, including the EM-ification of developed economies, the need to understand the incentives of policymakers, and how these frameworks can help inform your expectations about interest rates, inflation, credit rationing, and much more. In the second hour, Paulo Macro and Le Shrub discuss how the contemporary strain on the international system and on American military and financial hegemony could amplify some of the budgetary and political headwinds facing developed economies in the years ahead. They discuss the conundrum facing policymakers in China, the investment opportunity in commodities, the search for a new safe asset in a world of worsening fiscal balance sheets, and what it feels like to be “financially gaslighted” during an inflationary recession where prices rise as one’s living standard declines. You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces, you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 05/07/2024

In Episode 362 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Dr. Scott Sherr, an expert in hyperbaric oxygen therapy, about how this transformative therapeutic can reverse aging, improve cardiovascular health, regrow brain tissue, and extend the length and quality of your life in ways that are truly extraordinary. Demetri’s inspiration for this episode results from a personal journey that he’s been on for the last several months. In December of last year, he shared a story with his newsletter subscribers about his decision to undergo hyperbaric oxygen therapy to help regrow his brain and reverse possible symptoms from brain radiation treatment. For those of you who don’t know, Demetri is a brain tumor survivor and has written and spoken about it extensively. What you’re going to learn about in today’s conversation with Dr. Scott Sherr is not just how that experience went and how it helped Demetri reverse the symptoms he was experiencing but whether or not it can help you and how extraordinary hyperbaric oxygen therapy is a non-pharmacological therapeutic with remarkably broad health benefits. As usual, this conversation is broken into two parts, the first of which is meant to help you understand more precisely what hyperbaric oxygen therapy is, how it works, and the various protocols associated with it, including the different types of chambers, pressures, and durations available for those interested in pursuing treatment. In the second hour, Dr. Scott Sherr and Demetri explore the wide range of potential health benefits and use cases associated with hyperbaric oxygen therapy, including general anti-aging benefits, improvement in cardiovascular health, the treatment of neurological conditions, rehabilitation from strokes, the reversal of long-covid symptoms, and much more. They also discuss treatments that can be used in parallel to HBOT, such as Senolytic therapy, stem cell therapy, targeted supplementation, and various fasting protocols, to name a few. You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces, you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 04/30/2024

In Episode 361 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Dmitri Alperovitch, the co-founder and executive chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator, the co-founder and fmr. CTO of leading cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, and the author of the soon-to-be-released book “World on the Brink: How America Can Beat China in the Race for the Twenty-First Century.” Dmitri Alperovitch makes the case that we are already in the midst of a new Cold War with China and that Taiwan is the strategic flashpoint that risks triggering a devastating conflict between two nuclear powers in a way that West Berlin nearly played during America's last Cold War with the Soviet Union. He and Kofinas discuss the similarities and differences between Cold Wars I and II, including the role played by the USSR as a liberator in Europe and the strong appeal of communism as a competing ideology in the early decades of the First Cold War. They also discuss how America lost an opportunity to build a sustainable peace with post-Soviet Russia and how this has made the new Cold War with China all the more challenging and dangerous. The episode’s second hour begins with a discussion about the importance of Taiwan and a thought experiment about what would happen in the event of an uncontested Chinese takeover of the island. Alperovitch and Kofinas discuss the philosophical underpinnings of American supremacy and arguments for its preservation, the need to build national unity by addressing legitimate domestic grievances, military-industrial reform, immigration, and what it will take to deter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan that Dmitri believes could happen before the end of this decade. You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces, you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 04/19/2024

In Episode 360 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Victor Haghani about his book “The Missing Billionaires” and what a growing body of literature has to say about sensible wealth management and how to invest for the long term. Haghani started his career at Salomon Brothers in 1984, where he became a Managing Director in the bond-arbitrage group, and in 1993, he was a co-founding partner of Long-Term Capital Management. He founded Elm Wealth in 2011 to help clients, including his own family, manage and preserve their wealth with a thoughtful, research-based, and cost-effective approach that covers not just investment management but also broader decisions about wealth and finances. In the episode’s first hour, Haghani explains his investment philosophy and his firm’s approach to portfolio construction and management, including core financial concepts central to his framework, like expected utility, lift vs. drag, standard deviation as a measure of risk, variance, the shape of return distributions, and how to optimize position sizing and manage portfolio risk in a manner that is both rational and appropriate to your personal objectives and risk preferences. In the second hour, Victor explains Elm Wealth’s process for onboarding new investors, including how they measure personal risk preferences, their advice on how to approach investing and spending in older age, how to take into account one’s primary income stream when making investment decisions, tax-loss harvesting, and much more. You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces, you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 04/16/2024

In Episode 359 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Economist Lacy Hunt about America’s national savings and debt crisis. Dr. Hunt is the Executive Vice President and Chief Economist of Hoisington Investment Management Company. He previously served as Chief U.S. Economist for the HSBC Group, as Executive Vice President and Chief Economist at Fidelity Bank, and as Senior Economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas during the course of a 55-year career studying markets and the economy. In the first hour, Lacy Hunt shares his broad assessment of how the global economy is doing and the monetary and cyclical economic indicators he relies on to make that assessment. He and Demetri discuss the increased role of the US Treasury as an economic policy actor in the post-pandemic period and the concerning decline in the net national savings rate. They also discuss whether the neutral rate of interest, a hotly debated topic among economists, is moving lower, and what this means for trend growth, interest rates, and inflation. In the second hour, Dr. Hunt explains why he believes that the Fed has been able to raise interest rates by more than 500 basis points in less than two years without inducing a recession. Is this because other causal factors have remained more accommodative, or have the lags just grown longer and more variable, and if so, why? What does this tell us about the business cycle and the effectiveness of monetary policy? He and Demetri also discuss the chronically high fiscal deficits and the implications of trying to reduce them in an environment where the economy is becoming more dependent on government spending to boost economic growth, support critical national investments in energy and defense, and contribute to the private savings of the economy. Finally, Lacy Hunt explains why he believes that demographics are destiny and how trends in population growth, fertility rates, and family formation in many developed countries will impact growth and inflation in the years to come. You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces, you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 03/26/2024

In Episode 358 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Anne Stevenson-Yang, the founder of J Capital Research, which publishes highly diligenced research reports on over-valued, publicly traded companies, with a particular focus on China. Anne is also the author of several books on China and the Chinese political economy, including “Hello Kitty” and “Wild Ride: A Short History of the Opening and Closing of the Chinese Economy.” The first hour of this episode is a conversation about the history of the Chinese economic miracle, as seen through the eyes of someone who experienced those changes firsthand. Anne recounts the early phases of China’s liberalization in the 1980s, the post-Tiananmen political crackdown and subsequent rapid growth of the 1990s, and how the Asian Financial crisis at the end of that decade set the scene for the go-go years of the early 2000s, culminating in the Beijing summer Olympics and the 2008 financial crisis, which was in many ways a crisis enabled by the trade and capital imbalances of China’s export-driven growth model and rapid economic integration into the global economy. In the second hour, Anne and Demetri explore the China that has emerged under the leadership of Xi Jinping and why Anne believes that this represents a dark turn for the country. They discuss the enduring impact of COVID-19 on China’s economy, on the psychology of its people, and how the communist party’s response to the pandemic showcased the country’s systems of surveillance, including its social credit system, which has its own analog in the form of Western social media and surveillance companies. You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces, you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 03/19/2024

In Episode 357 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with the CEO of CrossBorder Capital, Michael Howell, about the run-up in gold and bitcoin prices and whether this signals the return of "money printing" driven by overwhelming government debt and deficit payments. Michael Howell has had the most accurate economic and financial forecasts of any analyst Kofinas has spoken with in the last several years. Demetri asked him back on the podcast to help explain why risk assets continue to outperform despite higher interest rates and what new all-time highs in gold and Bitcoin signal about global liquidity and investor confidence in the integrity of fiat currencies as reliable stores of value amid skyrocketing government debt and deficits. In the first hour, Michael breaks down the indicators he relies on to make his forecasts and why he expects economic growth and inflation to reaccelerate this year and into 2025. In the second hour, Howell forecasts which assets and asset classes he thinks will outperform, the direction of interest rates, the steepening of the yield curve, and how the expiration of the bank-term funding program (BTFP), the draw-down in the reverse repo facility (RRP), and a temporary decline in liquidity from tax payments could create buying opportunities for investors over the next several months. You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces, you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 03/13/2024

In Episode 356 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Paul Triolo, Senior Vice President for China and Technology Policy Lead at Albright Stonebridge Group, where he advises clients in technology, financial services, and other sectors as they navigate complex political and regulatory matters around the world. This episode was inspired by an article Paul recently published for American Affairs titled “A New Era for the Chinese Semiconductor Industry.” In it, he examines how semiconductor export controls levied by the US Commerce Department have been received in Beijing and how China's domestic semiconductor ecosystem has responded. Paul and Demetri spend the first hour of the episode assessing the state of the Biden administration’s strategic competition with China in the area of semiconductors. Specifically, they ask (1) what are the administration’s goals, (2) are those goals clear to Western companies that have depended on selling into the Chinese market for a large share of their revenues, (3) and is the administration itself clear on what it wants to accomplish with these efforts? In the second hour, they examine the fallout from the 2022 and 2023 semiconductor export controls, including some of the unintended consequences that could adversely impact major players in the Western semiconductor ecosystem over the long term. They discuss the Chips Act and whether more needs to be done to support America’s domestic semiconductor industry. They also do a deep dive into China’s response to these measures, including a new top-down approach to industrial policy and fully supporting open-sourced hardware architectures as a way to protect their companies from further restrictions. Lastly, they examine China’s success in electric vehicles and whether this is a harbinger of what could happen in other sectors if American policymakers are not careful. You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. For a 50% discount to American Affairs, use the code “HIDDENFORCES24” during checkout. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces, you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 03/05//2024

In Episode 355 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with mythologist and storyteller Joshua Schrei about the cultural, social, and political consequences of the rise of Artificial Intelligence. According to Joshua, humanity is entering an era whose only corollary is the stuff of fairy tales and myths. Powers that used to be reserved for magicians and sorcerers are no longer metaphorical, and it’s unclear if humanity has the tools and initiatory frameworks to use them responsibly. What’s at stake is our civilization, something that was obvious to the creators of the atom bomb but which seems less salient today, even though the risk of societal collapse stemming from the proliferation of AI and its associated technologies is arguably much greater. In the first hour of their conversation, Josh and Demetri discuss the role of magic, the desire for animacy, the burden of the Anthropocene, and why we keep gravitating toward powers that might kill us. In the second hour, they examine what life in a post-scientific era could be like, whether mass hysteria and a collective unmooring from reality are symptoms of the “AI moment,” and whether what we are living through today is really a spiritual crisis that cannot be solved through technological innovation, medication, or the endless pacification of media and entertainment You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. You can listen to The Emerald Podcast here and support the work Joshua is doing through Patreon here. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces, you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 02/28/2024

In Episode 354 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with investigative journalist Byron Tau, who specializes in law, courts, and national security, about how a hidden alliance between technology companies and the government is creating a new American surveillance state. Many of you are probably thinking, “Yeah, I know this. We all have cell phones. They have GPS trackers, and my phone calls are being monitored. Tell me something I don’t know.” Yet, the truth is that our smartphones, wearable devices, networked homes, credit cards, and even the tires we drive on emit an overwhelming amount of data revealing details about our lives, daily habits, and most intimate behaviors that would astonish you. That data is being captured and available for sale, and the U.S. government is its biggest customer. In the first hour of this conversation, you will learn that in the years after 9/11, the U.S. government, working with scores of anonymous companies, built a foreign and domestic surveillance apparatus that can peer into the lives of nearly everyone on the planet. This cottage industry of data brokers and government bureaucrats has one directive—“Get everything. Get it all.” The result is something resembling a sci-fi dystopia, like an episode out of Black Mirror, and the public knows virtually nothing about it. In the second hour, Byron and Demetri discuss the near-term implications of this surveillance state for American democracy, personhood, and freedom. They discuss the role of TikTok and other foreign companies and actors that are able to access this same data marketplace. They discuss the role of agent provocateurs and how location-based applications can be used to foment riots and manipulate people into mobs and other forms of collective action. They also discuss the role of prominent voices on the American right and what they leave out when discussing censorship in media. Most importantly, they discuss what can be done through legislation and regulation to restrain government agencies and private companies operating in the surveillance economy and what you can do on a personal level to mitigate these entities’ and actors’ access to your private life. You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces, you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 02/20/2024

In Episode 353 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Charles Duhigg. Duhigg is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling author whose latest book, Supercommunicators, examines how we can all learn to become better at hearing one another and forge more meaningful and authentic connections with the people around us. This episode will provide you with a framework for understanding the three different types of conversations we all engage in, whether we’re aware of it or not, and how this understanding can help improve your life and make you a supercommunicator. You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you want to join in on the conversation and become a member of the Hidden Forces Genius community, which includes Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can also do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces, you can help support the show by doing the following: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | YouTube | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | CastBox | RSS Feed Write us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Subscribe to our mailing list at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/ Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe and Support the Podcast at https://hiddenforces.io Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod Follow Demetri on Twitter at @Kofinas Episode Recorded on 02/12/2024