Info

Hidden Forces

Get the edge with Hidden Forces where media entrepreneur and financial analyst Demetri Kofinas gives you access to the people and ideas that matter, so you can build financial security and always stay ahead of the curve.
RSS Feed Subscribe in Apple Podcasts
Hidden Forces
2024
March
February
January


2023
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2022
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2021
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2020
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2019
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2018
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February
January


2017
December
November
October
September
August
July
June
May
April
March
February


Categories

All Episodes
Archives
Categories
Now displaying: April, 2017
Apr 24, 2017

In this SPECIAL EPISODE of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas plays part of a documentary about him, created by CBC Radio One’s “The Current.” The documentary is based on of an article published by Demetri dealing with his experience of, and subsequent recovery from, severe dementia and anterograde amnesia caused by a Craniopharyngioma.

Demetri is the very fortunate survivor of a brain tumor for which he underwent both surgery, as well as radiation therapy in the summer and fall of 2013. He lived with his brain tumor for four years before it began to cause him serious symptoms, most notably, dementia and anterograde amnesia. After his surgery in June of 2013, Demetri experienced an unprecedented reacquisition of memories previously thought to have been lost forever. The tumor had not disrupted the formation of new memories, but rather the retrieval process. Once the surgery removed pressure from his hippocampus and other cognitive areas of the brain, Demetri was able to reacquire and reassimilate those lost memories into his life. This documentary was originally produced by Leif Zapf-Gilje.

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Join the conversation on FacebookInstagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

Apr 17, 2017

In Episode 8 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with cybersecurity expert and cyber safety advocate, Josh Corman. Josh is the founder of I am The Cavalry, an advocacy group actively engaged in addressing some of the most pressing issues of public safety and threats to human life on the Internet today. He is also the Director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council. Josh Corman is part of the 2016 Cybersecurity Task Force commissioned by the United States Congress to address the growing risk to our hospitals, medical infrastructure, and connected devices, from cyber-attacks.

Gone are the quaint, innocent days of the early Internet, with its pesky Trojan’s, Macro Viruses, RATs, slammer worms, and blaster worms. Today’s cybersecurity landscape features a wide assortment of easily accessible and robust attack tools that exploit software bugs like Shellshock and Heartbleed. This is a cybersecurity landscape littered with DDoS and PDoS attacks like the Mirai Botnet and the recently released Brickerbot. The use of ransomware tools like CryptoLocker and SamSam have become billion-dollar criminal industries. Cybercrime is estimated to cost the global economy hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars a year. Yet, we accept the losses as the simple cost of doing business. But what about when the cost of these crimes escalates from dollars and cents to flesh and blood? What are the risks to our industrial control systems? What about our aviation and emergency response infrastructure? What are the vulnerabilities in our connected devices, cars, and hospitals? The threats posed by cyber criminals, terrorists, and hackers are no longer fringe concerns. They strike at the heart of our increasingly interconnected, exposed, and vulnerable society. In this episode, we explore what to do about them. 

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

Join the conversation on FacebookInstagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

Apr 10, 2017

In Episode 7 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with one of the pioneers in complexity science, W. Brian Arthur. Brian Arthur has long been associated with the Santa Fe Institute, having served on its board of trustees and its board of science. He has been described by Fortune Magazine, as “one of the country’s leading economic thinkers,” and he is best known for his pioneering work on the operation of high-technology markets. He is the author of numerous papers and books, including The Nature of Technology: What it is and How It Evolves, and Complexity and the Economy, a collection of papers on economics and financial markets examined from the perspective of complexity theory.

In this episode, Brian Arthur educates us on the emerging fields of complexity science and chaos theory. The history of complexity science is replete with the works of mathematicians, physicists, philosophers, ecologists, and biologists. It is a field defined by the imperfections of the natural world. In this conversation, Demetri and Brian Arthur stray far from equilibrium. They cover the booms and the busts of Joseph Schumpeter. They examine the information-laden price signals of Friedrich Hayek. They circle the chaotic orbits of Joseph Ford. They scale the infinite fractals of Benoit Mandelbrot. Demetri asks Brian Arthur about information theory, cryptography, and quantum potentiality, while examining the mystery of why markets and life are so volatile.

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor: Connor Lynch

Join the conversation on FacebookInstagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

Apr 3, 2017

In Episode 6 of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Joan Johnson-Freese about space warfare and the weaponization of outer space. Joan Freese is a professor of National Security Affairs at the US Naval War College. She’s been a faculty member at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies and the Air War College, which emphasizes the employment of air, space, and cyberspace in joint operations. Professor Freese has also served on the Space Studies Board of the National Academies of Science and has often testified before Congress on matters of space warfare and space security. She is the author of multiple books on space warfare and space security, among them, Heavenly Ambitions: America’s Quest to Dominate Space, The Chinese Space Program: A Mystery Within a Maze, and her latest book, Space Warfare in the 21st Century.

In this episode, we go into outer space. We don’t just stay in the low earth orbit (LEO) of the international space station, but move all the way to high (HEO), geostationary orbits (GEO) more than twenty-six thousand miles (35,786 km) above the Earth’s equator, where some of our most valuable and vulnerable satellites operate. We look at what the United States, China, and Russia are doing in the area of space warfare. We look at what our militaries are doing to weaponization outer space. We learn about ASAT’s, Kinetic Orbital Strikes, and Kinetic Kill Vehicles. We learn that any significant use of anti-satellite technologies could create a wall of space debris around earth orbit so thick, that we would be unable to launch anything into space including satellites, our space station, and any space missions to Mars and beyond for generations. Any and all satellite communications would go dark. Global distribution networks – including our food supplies, energy, and transportation – would grind to a halt. The global banking and financial system would collapse. Our communication infrastructure would be devastated. The implications of space warfare are catastrophic, and yet, the public is largely unaware of the dangers orbiting right above our heads. It’s high time we take notice.

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Join the conversation on FacebookInstagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

Apr 1, 2017

In this Market Forces segment of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with the investor, commentator, and editor of the Gloom, Boom, and Doom Report, Marc Faber. Though Dr. Faber has been dubbed "Dr. Doom," by the financial press, he is perhaps most famous for his very accurate timing of the US stock market bottom in March 2009. A veteran of the financial industry, Dr. Faber worked during the 1970's for White Weld & Company Limited in New York City, Zurich, and Hong Kong. He moved to Hong Kong in 1973. He was a managing director at Drexel Burnham Lambert Ltd Hong Kong from the beginning of 1978 until 1990. In 1990, he set up his own business, Marc Faber Limited, acting as an investment advisor and fund manager. Marc Faber now resides in Chiang Mai, Thailand, though he keeps a small office in Hong Kong.

In this nearly hour-long conversation, Marc Faber speaks with Demetri Kofinas about the growing wealth and income disparity across the world, with particular emphasis on the United States. They examine the role that central bank policy, government bailouts, and ultra-low interest rates have played in exacerbating this trend towards inequality and financial system instability. The two discuss Uber, where Demetri draws a parallel between the technology company’s practice of subsidizing its customers at the expense of its investors to the practice of Asian savers subsidizing American consumers during the 2000's housing boom. Marc Faber expresses a negative outlook for the US dollar in the near-term, taking a strongly bearish view of equities, in particular, the FANG stocks (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google). He believes that the Federal Reserve, rather than succeed in its efforts to shrink its balance sheet, will be overcome by deflationary events in the market and forced to begin expanding its balance sheet once again. Marc Faber believes that western central banks will look to buy more than just government bonds, CDOs, and government-backed mortgages. He is of the mind that just as the Bank of Japan has come to own two-thirds of the ETF market in Japan, so too can western central banks. Indeed, Marc Faber believes that central banks will do whatever they need to do in order to prevent the financial system from collapsing, and this means “printing more money.”

Demetri Kofinas also ask Marc Faber about Bitcoin, and what his views are on cryptocurrencies. Marc also gives his views on gold, structural demographics, populism, and the potential for war in Asia. The two end their conversation with best Marc Faber’s investment advice for anyone looking to navigate the ensuing years of financial turmoil and market volatility.

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor: Stylianos Nicolaou

Join the conversation on FacebookInstagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

Apr 1, 2017

In this Market Forces segment of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Emerging Markets Analyst Rachel Ziemba. Rachel leads Emerging Markets coverage for Roubini Global Economics and writes extensively across all three EM/Frontier regions, as well as about commodities. She has a particular interest in the macroeconomics of oil-exporting nations, including the management of oil wealth, energy-sector supply risks, and China. Rachel has served as an expert member of task forces in the U.S, and the UK on issues ranging from economic sanctions, Chinese security challenges, Egypt and sovereign wealth funds.

Today’s conversation begins with a look at North Korea and the geopolitical crisis that is unfolding on the Korean Peninsula. Why are financial markets so bad at pricing geopolitical risk and do governments even have a firm grasp on the evolving threat of a nuclear exchange between the United States and the regime of Kim Jong-un?

Our conversation eventually shifts to the matter of the falling dollar. What has been driving the fall in the dollar since the beginning of 2017? Have we seen a bottom or could the dollar fall another five, ten, or even twenty percent from these levels? The greenback has fallen despite a further drop in yields on 10-year and 30-year US treasuries. This is particularly relevant in light of the dollar carry-trade, which has benefited from the Federal Reserve's policy of low interest rates in the United States. How has the dollar's role as a funding currency for emerging markets played a role in the recent rise in equities and bond prices in some of these markets? What can forward volatility and the price of currency swaps tell us about the risk of a snap-back in the dollar carry-trade?

Finally, Rachel and Demetri discuss energy markets, specifically the chronically low price of oil and its effects on the oil and natural gas industries in the United States, as well as those abroad. In particular, the two discuss the case of Saudi Arabia, with its dwindling foreign exchange reserves and fragile geopolitical position.

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

Join the conversation on FacebookInstagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

Apr 1, 2017

In this Market Forces segment of Hidden Forces, host Demetri Kofinas speaks with Ben Friedland, Vice Chairman and Co-Head of CBRE’s Alternative Investments Practice (AIP), an industry-specific practice group focused on advising private equity firms, hedge funds, and other Alternative Investment companies on their real estate strategies throughout New York City and around the world. Throughout his 18+ years with CBRE, Ben has distinguished himself by developing exclusive relationships with many of the world’s most prestigious financial services companies. Partnering closely with his clients, he shapes and implements creative real estate strategies that align with their goals, helping them further efficiencies and achieve significant savings. Ben has consistently been recognized as one of CBRE’s top producers globally and is in a unique position to provide insight into how the forces of technology and globalization are changing this age-old, multi-trillion-dollar industry for the 21st century.

Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

Join the conversation on FacebookInstagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

1