In Episode 345 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Vance Spencer and Michael Anderson about whether we are in a new crypto bull market.
Mike and Vance are the founders of Framework Ventures, one of the largest venture capital firms in crypto. They have been on the podcast several times before to discuss their investment outlook for crypto, particularly decentralized finance and blockchain-based gaming. You can easily find those previous appearances in the related tab on this week’s episode page.
In this end-of-year episode, Demetri asks the Framework team about their 2024 crypto investment outlook and whether they think the recent price run-up marks the beginning of a new crypto bull market. They discuss the anticipated introductions of the first Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, the Ethereum roadmap and recent upgrades to its protocol, blockchain-based gaming, regulation, and much more.
Because this conversation deals with investing, nothing that we say on this podcast can or should be viewed as financial advice. All opinions expressed by him and his guests are solely our own opinions and should not be relied upon as the basis for financial decisions.
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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.
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Episode Recorded on 12/20/2023
In Episode 344 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with oil analyst and researcher Rory Johnston about what’s driving the fall in oil prices and how likely it is to continue. Rory shares his thoughts on investor positioning, growth in US oil production, recent M&A activity in the oil sector, OPEC production cuts, geopolitical risk in Guyana, as well as in the Strait of Hormuz, and much more.
Today’s episode was originally recorded as a live Q&A for members of the Hidden Forces Genius Community. If you’re interested in learning more about the Genius community, our private dinners, in-person events, and how to become a member, you can do that at HiddenForces.io/Subscribe, where you can also subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports.
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Episode Recorded on 12/13/2023
In Episode 343 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Diana Pasulka, a professor of religious studies who writes and teaches about the history of the Catholic tradition and new religious movements. Her work in this field has led her to study UFOs, or what we now call Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), about which she has written two books: American Cosmic and Encounters, both of which form the basis for much of this conversation.
In the first hour of their conversation, Pasulka and Kofinas discuss why so many people with reputable track records and prestigious positions in academia, government, and the private sector have devoted and continue to devote their lives to investigating this phenomenon. They also discuss what it is that is being alleged by people who claim to have knowledge of the UAP and UFO phenomenon and what sorts of explanations make sense in the context of what we know to be true today.
The second hour of their conversation is devoted to answering two fundamental questions. The first has to do with the nature and operational structure of government. Specifically, how is it that the United States Congress—the most powerful legislative body in the world—has been unable to get the answers to basic questions about secret UAP programs allegedly run out of government agencies and military contractors? Second, if some of what is discussed in the first hour is true, what else must be true, and what underlying assumptions about the world, our perception of it, and our place in it need to be re-evaluated or discarded altogether?
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, including Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can do that on our subscriber page. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone from our team will get back to you.
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Episode Recorded on 12/08/2023
In Episode 342 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Rudy Havenstein, the owner and operator of a satirical Twitter account that regularly mocks Western policymakers and politicians for their endless wars, corporate bailouts, and tone-deaf public statements about the economy, American foreign policy, and the state of American democracy.
Demetri asked Rudy on the podcast in order to understand what he feels has gone wrong in America and what it would take for voters like him to feel that the country is moving in the right direction. This conversation is meant to be accessible to anyone, irrespective of your beliefs, preconceptions, or pre-existing knowledge about the subjects that Kofinas and Havenstein explore in this episode.
The first hour is devoted to understanding Rudy’s perspective, how he grew up, his experience of America as a young man in the 1960s and 70s, how the country has changed in the intervening decades, and what his central grievances are against the ruling class and the government in Washington.
In the second hour, Rudy and Demetri discuss how those who care about the future of American and Western democracy can engage constructively in solutions that move the country forward. What is the story that we need to tell ourselves about who we are and what we’re capable of that will help bring this country together during one of the most precarious times in our history?
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, including Q&A calls with guests, access to special research and analysis, in-person events, and dinners, you can do that on our subscriber page. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone from our team will get back to you.
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Episode Recorded on 12/01/2023
In Episode 341 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Tom Wheeler, the former Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the author of the recently published book “Techlash: Who Makes the Rules in the Digital Gilded Age?”
Wheeler and Kofinas spend the first hour of their conversation discussing Tom’s time leading the FCC, what he learned during his time there about the policy-making process and the challenges of regulating Big Tech, how industrial era regulations and agencies are ill-suited for overseeing today’s 21st century digital economy, and what’s at stake if we don’t get it right.
In the second hour of their conversation, Tom and Demetri get into specific policy and regulatory proposals for dealing with both social media and artificial intelligence by challenging some of the false dichotomies and tribal biases that have dominated this conversation in recent years. They look at ways of incentivizing social media platforms to produce better quality information that reduces the incidence of costly externalities like rising rates of anxiety and depression among children, while cutting across political and ideological lines. Tom Wheeler also discusses President Joe Biden’s recently signed executive order on AI and the challenges of regulating this profoundly disruptive and potentially dangerous new technology.
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. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone from our team will get back to you.
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Episode Recorded on 11/27/2023
In Episode 340 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Zach Abraham, the Principal and Chief Investment Officer of Bulwark Capital Management and the host of the Know Your Risk Radio Program.
Zach and Demetri spend the first hour of their conversation discussing Zach’s approach to investing, where he thinks we are in the economic cycle, and why he believes we continue to see a disconnect between underlying economic fundamentals and asset prices.
In the second hour, Demetri and Zach reflect on the economic, political, and cultural changes that they’ve experienced in their lives, how these changes reflect (and are reflected in) some of the policy choices that have led us to this point in developed countries, how these changes affect Zach’s economic outlook, and how they inform his philosophy as an investor, a parent, and a citizen.
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. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone from our team will get back to you.
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Episode Recorded on 11/22/2023
In Episode 339 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Nathaniel Whittemore, host of the AI Breakdown for a timely conversation about the latest news surrounding the firing of OpenAI’s CEO and co-founder Sam Altman.
This was recorded on Monday, November 20th as a Live Q&A for members of our Genius community that we opened up to our newsletter subscribers. Nathaniel and Demetri discussed what is known thus far about the reasons behind Sam Altman’s firing, why it’s being described as a "coup," who the various factions are, and how much of this has to do with concerns around AI safety vs. accelerationism. We also discuss the opportunity this creates for OpenAI’s largest shareholder (Microsoft), the implications for the AI industry, as well as the largest players in the space for AI foundation models, and much, much more.
You can subscribe to our free newsletter at https://hiddenforces.io/newsletter/.
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 do that at https://hiddenforces.io/subscribe/.
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Episode Recorded on 11/20/2023
In Episode 338 of Hidden Forces, speaks with Dr. Edward Luttwak about American grand strategy and the logic of war. Dr. Luttwak is an author and consultant to governments and companies around the world and is known for his work on grand strategy, military strategy and history, and international relations.
Luttwak and Kofinas spend the first hour of their conversation discussing the logic of war and the dimensions of strategy, how the nature of a nation state’s political system influences its grand strategic objectives, and what American grand strategy is and should be given the strategic challenges the United States faces in the 21st century.
In the second hour, the conversation shifts to China given U.S. President Biden’s and Xi Jinping’s recent in-person meeting at the APEC summit in San Francisco. Edward Luttwak explains why he believes that it would be a very bad idea if China attempted to take Taiwan by force, how it would find itself at war with the United States and an assortment of regional and international allies, why it would lose that war, and why that still won’t deter Xi Jinping from trying to retake the island by force. The two also discuss the implications of China’s nearly three decade-long one-child policy for its military readiness and what Beijing’s push to increase domestic grain production as part of its initiative to promote food security (even at the expense of long-standing efforts to reforest the country) can tell us about Xi Jinping’s desire to ready the country for war.
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. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone from our team will get back to you.
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Episode Recorded on 11/15/2023
In Episode 337 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Jerry Colonna, the co-founder and CEO of the executive coaching and leadership development company Reboot, the host of the Reboot Podcast, and the author of the recently published book “Reunion: Leadership and the Longing to Belong.”
Demetri got to know Jerry during their first interview together after the publication of Jerry’s last book on the subject of leadership and the art of growing up, in which he explained how the lessons of leadership are at their core, lessons in humanity—that the process of becoming a better leader and the radical self-inquiry that it requires, ultimately makes us better human beings.
In their second conversation together and in his latest book Reunion, Jerry Colonna builds on those insights to help us move beyond the inner world of becoming better humans toward the outer worlds of inclusion and belonging that seem to be missing in so many people’s lives and in our world today.
In their second conversation together and in his latest book Reunion, Jerry builds on those insights to help us move beyond the inner world of becoming better humans toward the outer world of creating the kind of inclusion and belonging that seem to be missing in so many people’s lives and in our world today.
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. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone from our team will get back to you.
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Episode Recorded on 11/06/2023
In Episode 336 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Google DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman about the containment problem and the AI dilemma that he outlines in his book, “The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma."
Mustafa Suleyman and Demetri discuss the rapid advancement and proliferation of Artificial Intelligence and Synthetic Biology, why this revolution is going to be fundamentally different from past periods of rapid technological change, and what can be done to solve the containment problem and prevent some of the more catastrophic outcomes from occurring, while still reaping the benefits of this next wave of innovation.
The first hour of this episode is spent exploring how these AI systems work, how they learn, and how they perceive the world, as well as why they are so difficult to contain. And yet, we need to contain them if we want to avoid some of the more catastrophic outcomes like synthetically engineered pandemics, pandemics of public confusion that undermine our sense of reality, and moves toward totalitarianism or civilization-ending anarchy.
In the second hour, Kofinas and Suleyman discuss various versions of what success and failure might look like and what we can do as a society to help move us closer toward the future that we want and away from dystopian nightmares that we’ve all seen depicted in some of the most famous movies of the last half-century.
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. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone from our team will get back to you.
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Episode Recorded on 10/23/2023
In Episode 335 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Marshall Kosloff. Marshall is the host of The Realignment and Arsenal of Democracy podcasts and is a media fellow at Hudson Institute.
Marshall and Demetri spend the first hour applying Marshall’s realignment framework to U.S. foreign policy in light of the recent developments in Israel and the potential for a destabilizing regional war with Iran. In the second hour, they discuss Artificial Intelligence (AI) and social media regulation, the 2024 election, and the risk that we may be sleepwalking into a new world war that would devastate the global economy and put people’s lives at risk in ways that we haven’t experienced since the late 1930s and 1940s.
You can subscribe to our premium content and access our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports at HiddenForces.io/subscribe. You can listen to The Realignment here and Arsenal of Democracy here.
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. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone from our team will get back to you.
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Episode Recorded on 10/30/2023
In Episode 334 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with famed historian of American Foreign policy Walter Russell Mead about the evolving war in the Middle East and why we are living through the most dangerous period in international affairs since the 1930s. Professor Mead is a Distinguished Fellow in Strategy and Statesmanship at the Hudson Institute, the Global View Columnist at The Wall Street Journal, and the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College in New York.
How have we found ourselves on the cusp of another war in the Middle East when the Biden administration’s explicit goal coming into office in 2020 was to get the United States out of this region so it could focus on China? This is the question that Mead and Kofinas look to answer in the first hour of their conversation. They also discuss the historical parallels and differences between the present moment and previous periods of immense danger in the international system, the apocalyptic strain in American politics and foreign policy, and how political ideology and the culture war inform people’s opinions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the escalating war in Gaza.
In the second hour, Walter Russell Mead speculates about how international events may evolve, the possibility of outright collusion among America’s adversaries, as well as further avenues of escalation that could lead to direct U.S. involvement in Israel’s war against Hamas. The two also discuss how the war in Ukraine, as well as Chinese military provocations in the Pacific factor into American policy in the Middle East, why U.S. adversaries no longer seem deterred by American power, and what can be done to change that before it’s too late.
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. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone from our team will get back to you.
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Episode Recorded on 10/26/2023
In Episode 333 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Michael Brenes, the Director of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy at Yale University who recently authored an article for Foreign Affairs about the U.S. defense industrial base titled “How America Broke Its War Machine.”
Michael and Demetri discuss the state of the U.S. defense industrial base, American military readiness, and the effect that great-power competition and the expansion and scope of U.S. military involvement in active conflicts overseas could have on the nation’s political stability.
You can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to 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. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone from our team will get back to you.
If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following:
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Episode Recorded on 10/17/2023
In Episode 332 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with geopolitical analyst and forecaster Kamran Bokhari. Kamran is the Senior Director of the Eurasian Security & Prosperity Portfolio at the New Lines Institute for Strategy & Policy and has served at the U.S. State Department and as a Senior Consultant with the World Bank.
The subjects of today’s conversation concern the escalating violence ignited by last weekend’s brutal attacks on Israeli civilians by Hamas, as well as the Israeli Defense Forces’ ongoing counteroffensive and bombing of the Gaza Strip.
Kamran and Demetri spend the first hour of their conversation discussing the attacks, what we know about their original scope and intention, what role Iran may have played in helping plan the attacks, and whether or not we can expect Hezbollah to open a second front of attack in the north of Israel, as well as other potential pathways of escalation that could rope in the United States and turn this into a larger, regional conflict.
In the second hour, Bokhari and Kofinas look at how the events transpiring in the Middle East fit into the story that Demetri has been telling on this podcast for years about the fragmentation of the liberal rules-based international order and the emergence of a new multipolarity where nation states will seek to resolve long-standing border or ethnic disputes by force as everyone jostles to reposition themselves favorably ahead of the emergence of a new status quo. What this means for the future of Israel, Iran, Turkey, China, Russia, and the United States, is all part of that discussion.
You can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to 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. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone from our team will get back to you.
If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following:
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Episode Recorded on 10/15/2023
In Episode 331 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Andy Constan and Mike Green after a week of turmoil in the bond market that saw a dramatic repricing of long-term government debt, raising debt servicing costs for the US government and sending yields on 10-year Treasury bonds to nearly 5%.
Demetri, Andy, and Mike spend the first hour of their conversation trying to make sense of the recent sell-off, as well as what the implications of these higher long-term interest rates will be for the economy and asset markets.
The second hour is dedicated to discussing the risk-reward calculus for investors who are trying to decide whether or not they want to use this opportunity to add bonds to their portfolios, in what amount, over what duration, and what the risks and opportunities are of doing so given the continued uncertainty about the direction of interest rates and inflation.
You can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to 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. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone from our team will get back to you.
If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following:
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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas
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Episode Recorded on 10/06/2023
In Episode 330 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Henry Olsen, author of “Working Class Republican” and “The Four Faces of the Republican Party,” about where the United States and other western democratic countries find themselves politically today, the sources of populism’s broad, international appeal, and why he believes that we are living through the kind of political realignment that hasn’t happened for almost a century. Henry is also a columnist for the Washington post and the host of the weekly podcast “Beyond the Polls” where he speaks with leading political journalists and analysts about American politics and its presidential and congressional races.
Demetri and Henry spend the first hour of their conversation discussing the history of democratic politics and how we got to where are today where so many Americans and others Westerners no longer feel at home in their own parties and increasingly feel like their countries and the people who govern them are unresponsive to their needs, incompetent or corrupt in their exercise of power, and do not seem to share their most fundamental values when comes to the protection of personal freedoms, the exercise of civic responsibility, and the role of government in society.
The second hour is devoted to American electoral politics, specifically the 2024 elections, whether or not we are going to see a rematch of Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden, whether Trump will be able to campaign while also fighting several ongoing lawsuits, what it would take for someone in the Republican Primary—a Ron DeSantis or Vivek Ramaswamy—to take the nomination from him, what impact a third party candidate like RFK Jr. could have on the race, and what happens if Trump actually wins. What does the country look like in that scenario? Is the “Deep State” even going to let him take office? Will he be able to exercise power and if he does, is he going to go after his political enemies with same commitment and vitriol that they have gone after him, and what does that mean for the viability of American democracy?
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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. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone from our team will get back to you.
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Episode Recorded on 10/03/2023
In Episode 329 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Dylan Patel, a semiconductor and A.I. analyst and the founder of boutique Semiconductor research and consulting firm SemiAnalysis, about how U.S. semiconductor export controls are failing and what the U.S. can do about it.
Dylan and Demetri spend the first hour of their conversation going over Huawei’s groundbreaking new Kirin 9000s chipset produced by Chinese semiconductor foundry SMIC and what it tells us about the progress that China’s domestic chip industry has made in the year since the U.S. Commerce Department implemented a series of targeted updates to its semiconductor industry export controls. This also includes a discussion about the military and commercial implications of China’s progress for America’s strategic competition with the People’s Republic.
In the second hour, Kofinas and Patel focus their attention on how exactly China’s domestic chip industry has managed to make so much progress despite the stated goals of the U.S. Commerce Department, what can be done to strengthen the existing export controls that are already in place, and what additional measures can be taken to complement those efforts that strengthen America’s own semiconductor industry and that incentivize a rebuild of American industry and society for the 21st century.
You can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to 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. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone from our team will get back to you.
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Episode Recorded on 09/28/2023
In Episode 328 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Brad Setser, the Whitney Shepardson Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations where he specializes in global trade and capital flows, financial vulnerability analysis, and sovereign debt restructuring. Brad has also served in multiple Democrat administrations as a senior advisor to the U.S. Trade Representative, as deputy assistant secretary for international economic analysis at the U.S. Treasury Department, and as a director for international economics on the staff of the National Economic and the National Security Councils.
Brad and Demetri spend the first hour of their conversation discussing what Brad has described as “the new geopolitics of global finance,” how the political and national security assumptions and priorities that were taken for granted during the unipolar period are undergoing a series of transformations, and how these transformations are increasingly informing economic policymaking and driving changes in the global economy and financial markets.
In the second hour, they focus our attention on China’s economy, what a viable macroeconomic equilibrium could look like for China given its extraordinarily high savings rate and export-driven growth model, and whether the country can continue to grow without making significant reforms that would increase domestic consumption and reduce the country’s structurally high current account surpluses. They also discuss the state of the German economy, the growth of China’s export market for electric vehicles, the progress that’s been made to de-risk supply chains, industrial policy in the United States and Europe, and much more.
You can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to 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. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone from our team will get back to you.
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Episode Recorded on 09/26/2023
In Episode 327 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Diana Choyleva in what was originally recorded as a live Q&A for members of our Genius Community. The subject of the Q&A is the latest state of US-China relations with an emphasis on some of the most recent headlines related Huawei’s latest 5G phone with its domestically produced 7nm chip, China’s naval exercises in the pacific, as well as some of ongoing headlines around the state of its economy.
During the introduction, Demetri makes the case for why China’s rise poses a threat to the liberal world and why our response to that threat needs to be situated within a larger political and economic movement that reconstitutes civic power in the democratic institutions of government which are the birthright of every American.
Diana Choyleva has been kind enough to offer Hidden Forces listeners a discount to her Enodo Economics course on US-China relations, which explores many of the issues that we tackle in today’s Q&A and that provides a roadmap for anyone trying to understand the deeper drivers of the US-China decoupling and its geopolitical, technological, and economic ramifications. Use the discount code “HIDDENFORCES30” at checkout to get 30% off the entry price.
If you want to 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 do that on our subscriber page at HiddenForces.io/Subscribe.
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Episode Recorded on 09/20/2023
In Episode 326 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Alex Velez-Green, the fmr. National Security Advisor to U.S. Senator Josh Hawley, who helped staff the senator on the Armed Services Committee and advised him on matters related to strengthening deterrence against China, including U.S. conventional and nuclear force structure and posture.
Alex and Demetri discuss the perilous situation in which the U.S. now finds itself in the Pacific, how it got here, and what is required to ready the U.S. military for a war against China in the next few years, and if we are lucky, deter it altogether.
The first hour of their conversation is dedicated to a discussion about the serious risks that the United States military currently faces in the pacific and why there is a real chance that the People’s Liberation Army will be able to defeat U.S. forces in a fight over Taiwan. This includes a discussion about Chinese intentions and the advancements that China’s military has made in the last several years, the consequences of losing a confrontation with China over Taiwan, and America’s ability to contain China once it has broken through the first island chain.
In the second hour, Velez-Green and Kofinas assess the state of America’s defense industrial base, what is being done to restock critical weapon systems and munitions, and how long it will take before the U.S. can feel confident in its ability to sustain a protracted war against China. In this context, they also discuss trade-offs between continuing to provide arms to Ukraine and delivering those same weapons systems and munitions to Taiwan in an effort to deter a Chinese invasion. They end the episode by reflecting on the legacy of foreign policy failures that have led to this moment, how we got here, and what needs to happen in order for the United States to prevail in what is likely to be the greatest national challenge the nation has faced since World War II.
You can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports (or Key Takeaways) 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. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone from our team will get back to you.
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Episode Recorded on 09/14/2023
In Episode 325 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Michael Nicoletos, the founder and CEO of DeFi Advisors, an independent investment advisory firm specializing in macro and digital assets.
Michael and Demetri spend the first twenty minutes discussing Michael’s biography, including his time living and working in the United States. What that experience taught him about the country’s capacity for change and why its embrace of failure is critical to America’s continual economic, cultural, and political renewal is also part of that conversation.
The rest of the first hour is spent discussing something that Michael and Demetri often talk about in private: Dollar Doomerism—the perennial anxiety, particularly prevalent in American circles and among American media pundits that the United States Dollar is on the precipice of some kind of collapse or devaluation. The sources of this doomerism, its merits, and what proponents of this view seem to get consistently wrong is what they spend the rest of the first hour discussing. This also leads to a conversation about the Euro and a potential BRICS currency, as well as a discussion about the long-term direction for interest rates and inflation.
In the second hour, Michael and Demetri focus mainly on geopolitics, including the national security challenges facing European member states over the war in Ukraine, as well as US preparations for a war over Taiwan, and how both of these dynamics are impacting and being impacted by a resurgence in American isolationism. The two also discuss the state of China’s economy, the need to rebalance the power dynamic between labor and capital, and why there are reasons to be hopeful about the future.
You can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports (or Key Takeaways) 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. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone from our team will get back to you.
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Episode Recorded on 09/05/2023
In Episode 324 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Mauro Guillen, a Professor of Multinational Management and Vice Dean of the Executive MBA Program at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Mauro combines his training as a sociologist and his experience as a business economist to identify and quantify the most promising opportunities at the intersection of demographic, economic, and technological developments.
His book “2030” was an instant bestseller and he joins me today to discuss the insights and arguments that he puts forward in his latest book “The Perennials” about the Megatrends creating what he calls “a Postgenerational Society.”
In this conversation, Mauro and I explore the sweeping demographic and technology-driven changes that we are only now just beginning to experience and why he believes that these changes are creating a new “post-generational workforce” that will liberate people from the constraints of the sequential model of life that has defined industrial and post-industrial society for centuries.
We discuss how this generational revolution will impact young people just entering the workforce as well as those who are living and working into their 70s, 80s, and even longer. We discuss how these changes will impact our pension, healthcare, and educational systems, our politics, the mental health of our fellow citizens, family structures, and much more.
You can find related podcasts to this one on this week’s episode at HiddenForces.io, where you can also access our premium content, including transcripts, and intelligence reports, by joining one of our three content tiers. All subscribers gain access to our premium feed which you can listen to using your favorite podcast app just like you are listening to this episode right now.
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. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you.
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Episode Recorded on 08/15/2023
In Episode 323 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with the former Chief Economist at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Director of the Center for Politics, Economics, and History at the University of Texas at Austin, Charles Calomiris about his recently published paper “Fiscal Dominance and the Return of Zero-Interest Bank Reserve Requirements.”
In the paper, Dr. Calomiris considers the possibility that the United States government will enact new and more onerous forms of financial repression, including commandeering the US banking system to fund unsustainably high debt and deficit payments that would otherwise lead to a sovereign debt crisis.
In the first hour, Calomiris and Kofinas discuss the history of US bank policy and the unique characteristics of the American political economy that inform how the nation responds to political crises and the populist temptation to resolve them through the US banking system.
The second hour is devoted to a discussion about when and how such measures will be taken to resolve an impending fiscal debt crisis that professor Calomiris believes is inevitable. They discuss what the signposts for such an impending crisis could be, the tradeoffs that an economy operating under the conditions of fiscal dominance would have to make, how such a period of fiscal dominance could end (i.e., either through a prolonged period of double-digit inflation or a full-blown debt crisis), and what role fintech, crypto, and other forms of decentralized finance will play in such an economy given the government’s need to fund itself without losing complete control over inflation.
You can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports (or Key Takeaways) 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. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you.
If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following:
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Episode Recorded on 08/09/2023
In Episode 322 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with someone he has gotten to know mainly by following his anonymous account on Twitter where he goes by the name Shrubbery Capital or Le Shrub, for short.
Le Shrub consistently provides some of the most entertaining and clever market commentary you will find anywhere and Demetri could not resist the opportunity to have him on the podcast, especially given the fact that this conversation was conducted in person.
The two spend most of the first hour discussing Le Shrub’s background, his investment philosophy, and his process for coming up with new trade ideas, as well as his experience shorting the housing market in 2008 as part of a famous team known for doing “The Big Short.” What he learned from that experience and how it applies to today’s markets is also part of that conversation.
The rest of the episode including the second hour is a deep dive into many of the topics that are top of mind right now for investors and policymakers alike. Demetri and his guest discuss the divergence between bonds and equities, the bull and bear cases for commodities, the fate of emerging markets, the bull and bear cases for different European economies, China, gold, the US Dollar, and of course, no conversation is complete today without a discussion about the investment implications of A.I., and yes, Aliens.
You can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports (or Key Takeaways) 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. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you.
If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following:
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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas
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Episode Recorded on 07/27/2023
In Episode 321 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with bestselling author, renowned historian, economist, and theorist of generational change, Neil Howe.
Twenty-five years ago, Neil and his late co-author William Strauss put forward a provocative new theory of American history. Looking back over the last 500 years, they’d uncovered a distinct pattern: modern history moves in cycles, each one lasting roughly 80 to 100 years, with each composed of four eras—or “turnings”—that always arrive in the same order and each last about 25 years.
The last of these eras is always the most perilous. It’s a period of civic upheaval and national mobilization as traumatic and transformative as the New Deal and World War II, the Civil War, or the American Revolution. The authors called it the Fourth Turning, and Neil joins us today to explain why he thinks that the fourth turning has finally arrived, what it means for those of us living during this period, and how his theory of generational change can help us navigate it with courage, competency, and a new-found sense of resiliency that may seem unimaginable to us today.
Howe and Kofinas spend the first hour of their conversation laying the foundation for his theory, discussing the four different seasons of the saecula, as well as the four different generations that propel it forward.
They spend the second hour applying that framework to the Fourth Turning itself, discussing what it would take to consolidate our society, what an existential threat to our nation’s survival will look and feel like, and what we can do to prepare ourselves for this great national challenge that will draw all other problems into it and require the extraordinary mobilization of most Americans.
You can subscribe to our premium content and gain access to our premium feed, episode transcripts, and Intelligence Reports (or Key Takeaways) 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. If you still have questions, feel free to email info@hiddenforces.io, and Demetri or someone else from our team will get right back to you.
If you enjoyed listening to today’s episode of Hidden Forces you can help support the show by doing the following:
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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas
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Episode Recorded on 07/24/2023