Hidden Forces

In Episode 145 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Camila Russo, the host of the Defiant podcast and author of “The Infinite Machine,” the first official account of the rise of the Ethereum blockchain. The first 25 minutes of this conversation explores Camila’s experience working as a journalist in Argentina, how she got interested in covering cryptocurrencies, as well as her process for writing such an ambitious book. The rest of the episode deals mostly with the book itself, including a discussion about the ICO craze of 2017 and the impact that it’s had on Ethereum, it’s developer community, and investor appetite for funding new ventures and initiatives in the space. This part of the conversation continues into the overtime, where we also debate whether or not the ICO model itself is the ideal mechanism by which to fund early-stage, open source innovations. We also discuss what it’s like to be a journalist covering crypto today, how the media industry in crypto has changed in the years since the o

In Episode 144 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with philosophers Brandon Warmke and Justin Tosi about the phenomenon of grandstanding, which they define as “the use and abuse of moral talk for the purposes of self-promotion.”  Although moral grandstanding is a spectacle most commonly associated with those on the political left, the practice of grandstanding is an entirely bipartisan phenomenon. Its increased prevalence in public discourse has dangerous implications for politics and society. For grandstanders, it isn’t the pursuit of virtue that motivates them. They aren’t concerned with doing good; they’re concerned with looking good; they want others to think that they are morally superior, and they’re willing to go to great lengths in order to do it, including using moral talk as a tactic for punishment and intimidation.   The irony is that grandstanders accomplish all of this by free-riding on the moral behavior and good intentions of others. They turn civil discourse into a moral arms race, weapo

In Episode 143 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Vivian Lee, President of Health Platforms at Verily Life Sciences (an Alphabet company) about America’s broken health system, how to fix it, and why it’s been so difficult to do until now.  According to an Institute of Medicine 2012 study, we waste 30 cents of every dollar we spend on health care. That’s over $1 trillion per year. Nearly one-fifth of the US economy goes to pay for health. That’s two to three times more than other high-income OECD nations where health coverage is universal. And yet, our life-expectancy statistics place us 26th out of 35 among those same OECD countries. How is this possible? What you are going to learn today is that while the solution to America’s broken health system is complicated, the problem is rather simple: our incentives are totally “out-of-whack.” Our fee-for-service system rewards action, not better health outcomes. It encourages overtreatment and specialty care at the expense of prevention and primary care.

In Episode 142 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Tony Greer, editor of the Morning Navigator and founder of TG Macro. This episode begins with a clip from David Portnoy (a.k.a Barstool Dave or Davey Daytrader), in what is probably the most epic hype video ever created for stock trading.  Portnoy has come to personify not only the recent rip-roaring retracement in equities, but also, the philosophy that the stock market no longer bears any relationship to the real economy. “It took me a while to figure out that the stock market isn’t connected to the economy,” according to David Portnoy. “I tell people there are two rules to investing: Stocks only go up, and if you have any problems, see rule No. 1.” Extraordinary monetary interventions remain the single most important causal factor for explaining this phenomenon (what we have referred to on this show as “market nihilism”). Whether investment flows are coming from passive funds or “passive people,” what’s important is that the allocators invest ind

In Episode 141 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Joseph Nye, the co-founder of the international relations theory of neoliberalism who is credited with developing the concept of "soft power."  In his latest book “Do Morals Matter?,” Dr. Nye meticulously weighs the ethics of the foreign policy decisions of American presidents from F.D.R. to Donald Trump. He argues that good moral reasoning should be three-dimensional, weighing and balancing the intentions, the means, and the consequences of a president's decisions. “A moral foreign policy is not a matter of intentions versus consequences but must involve both as well as the means that were used,” professes Joseph Nye.   In this conversation, Demetri and professor Nye discuss the presidencies of Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump. Nye compares and contrasts the various presidents, their tenures, policy challenges & oppo

In Episode 140 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Thomas Rid, Professor of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies about active measures, the history of disinformation, and political warfare. We live in the age of organized deception. Spy agencies pour vast resources into hacking, leaking, and forging data, often with the goal of weakening the very foundation of liberal democracy: trust in facts. As a renowned expert on technology and national security, Thomas Rid was one of the first to sound the alarm. More than four months before the 2016 election, he warned that Russian military intelligence was “carefully planning and timing a high-stakes political campaign" to disrupt the democratic process. But as crafty as such so-called active measures have become, they are not new. The story of modern disinformation begins with the post-Russian Revolution clash between communism and capitalism, which would come to define the Cold War. In this conversation a

In Episode 139 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Matt Stoller, Director of Research at the American Economic Liberties Project and author of Goliath: The Hundred Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy. In this nearly two-hour long conversation, we discuss how monopoly, commercial concentration, and regulatory capture drive outcomes in our economy, markets, and political system and what we can do to take that power back. This episode was recorded on Friday, May 29th, amidst the riots that have been unfolding across the country in response to the death of George Floyd, a 46-year old African American man who appears to have been suffocated by Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin. Neither Matt or Demetri are in any position to provide further insight into what is transpiring in Minneapolis, but they do discuss the response by some members of the media, the White House, as well as the President’s statement that he is going to issue an executive order to roll back Section 230 of the Communica

In Episode 138 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Adam Tooze, professor of history and Director of the European Institute at Columbia University about the German Constitutional Court’s recent ruling. In its decision, the German Court finds that the European Central Bank’s 2015 bond-buying program would be illegal under German law unless the ECB can prove the purchases are justified. The ruling threatens to undermine the very credibility of Central Bank independence, which has always been predicated on a political consensus about what the proper role of monetary policy is, how it should operate, and what its objectives should be.  This consensus no longer holds, not only in Europe but across much of the developed world. Left unresolved, the contradictions between the mandates of central banks and their policy actions will only worsen the type of political dysfunction that threatens the very independence that they seek to protect.  For Hidden Forces premium subscribers, this week’s hour-long episode

In Episode 137 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with professor of finance at Beijing’s Peking University, Michael Pettis. Profesor Pettis’ research has focused mainly on Chinese financial markets, global trade & capital flows, and central banking. He spent seventeen years on Wall Street running fixed-income trading and capital market desks and has advised governments on privatizations of national banking systems and commercial bank debt restructuring & loan issuance.  In their latest book, “Trade Wars are Class Wars,” Michael Pettis and his co-author Matthew Klein argue that rising inequality within countries heightens trade conflicts between them.   The entire conversation lasts for approximately two hours and we devote the first hour to understanding how balance of payments and capital flows—themselves heavily dependent on the dynamics of wealth and income distribution within a country’s borders—can generate imbalances in trade, asset prices, interest rates, debt levels, and currency valuati

In Episode 136 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with CoinDesk Chief Content Officer Michael Casey about “The Great Monetary Inflation” and the future of digital money. The two chronicle the financialization of the global economy that occured between the end of gold convertibility in 1971 and the Great Financial Crisis of 2008. They discuss how the period of the 1970’s weighed heavily on the American zeitgeist and the political transformation that occurred between the start of the Iran hostage crisis and the fall of the Berlin Wall. The episode culminates in a conversation about the political and monetary forces that have been unleashed in response to the spread of COVID-19 and their implications for the future of capitalism and liberal democracy. For those interested in attending the Consensus 2020 conference, you can find more information at https://www.coindesk.com/events/consensus-2020. You can also sign up for Michael’s weekly email newsletter, Money Reimagined, as well as other CoinDesk newslette

In Episode 135 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Lowell Randel, Vice President of Government and Legal Affairs for the Global Cold Chain Alliance, which serves as the voice of the cold chain industry, representing 1,300 member companies in over 85 countries. The two discuss the impact that COVID-19 and the government shutdowns have had on food supply chains, processing facilities, and the industrial farm sector. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant shifts in consumer demand away from food service businesses like restaurants and towards foot retail outlets like supermarkets and groceries. Food industry players are in turn looking to adapt, redirecting products originally destined for the food service sector to retail instead. This has created challenges for farmers that have led, in some cases, to the euthanization of livestock and the wholesale destruction of crops ready for harvest. This episode uses the crisis caused by COVID-19 and the government mandated shutdowns in order to understan

In Episode 134 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management and author of Weekend Notes about investing in a volatile world where four decades of assumptions about markets, politics, and policy no longer hold.  We are living through a period of radical uncertainty and disillusionment with institutions and markets that we haven’t seen for a hundred years. International alliances are shifting. National priorities are changing. The role of government in society is growing. The stakes for portfolio managers, politicians and individuals have never been higher. Learning how to navigate the volatility and radical uncertainty of the present moment is the seminal challenge that we face. How we manage that uncertainty in the years to come presents not only a financial challenge but an emotional one as well. It will define a generation and shape the fortunes of more to come. If you want access to Demetri’s overtime with Eric Peters, as well as to the transcript and rundown

Nic Carter is a partner at Castle Island Ventures, a Cambridge MA-based venture fund focused on seed stage investments in public blockchain startups. He’s also the cofounder and chairman of Coin Metrics, a blockchain analytics company and he is a regular columnist at CoinDesk where he writes thoughtfully about the political economy and issues concerning bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market. Nic been on the show before; he was our guest on episode 97. He’s thoughtful; he’s interesting to talk to, and this conversation turned out to be so enjoyable that we’ve decided to make it available to everyone. If you like what you hear, please take a moment to share your thoughts and feelings about the podcast on twitter or as a review on Apple Podcasts. If you are interested in supporting the show and gaining access to our premium RSS feed, as well as to transcripts, notes, & rundowns from every episode you can do this directly through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our RSS feed, whi

In this Special Episode of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas releases the overtime segment to Episode 123 with Grant Williams and Ben Hunt. The three discuss the power of authenticity and narrative in an era of fake news and “ponzi people,” what it’s like to build a content business, what they’ve learned doing it, and what drives them to keep going. You can support Demetri and the team at Hidden Forces by becoming a premium subscriber, which gives you access to transcripts, rundowns, and overtime segments, including this week’s special recording with Castle Island Ventures partner Nic Carter. All subscribers gain access to our overtime feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. Your support is what makes this program possible. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at http://patreon.com/hiddenforces Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hiddenforcespod

In Episode 133 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Leland Miller, CEO of China Beige Book, which runs the largest private Chinese data collection operation in the world, about the state of China’s economy in the wake of COVID-19. The two discuss the impact of the global shutdown on all the major sectors of China’s economy, as well as the implications for China’s already fragile banking system. During the overtime, Leland and Demetri consider a host of geopolitical consequences that could flow from the ongoing global disruptions. They also discuss the effects to Chinese real estate and how the CCP may try a catastrophic contraction. You can access the episode overtime, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week’s episode through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our overtime feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou Subscribe & Support the Podcast at htt

In Episode 132 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Tom Derry, CEO of the Institute for Supply Management and publisher of the market-moving ISM Manufacturing Index about the impact of COVID-19 on global supply chains. This is a deep-dive into how the  intricate world of just-in-time manufacturing, outsourcing, and globalization has been impacted by the world-wide disruptions caused by the novel coronavirus. In recent years, global supply chains have been in the process of a fundamental shift, in part to strengthen their immune systems to mitigate the risk of multiple threats — unprecedented trade turbulence, as well as economic uncertainty, geopolitical events and rising labor costs. COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) has provided a severe new test to these global supply chains. Since its genesis in the manufacturing hub of Wuhan, China, in December, the outbreak has resulted in more than one million documented cases and nearly sixty thousand deaths worldwide, quarantined workers, temporarily shuttered fa

In Episode 131 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Hari Krishnan, a portfolio manager at Doherty Advisors responsible for the VXR (VIX replication strategy) and hedging solutions business. The two discuss Hari’s thesis around risk management, portfolio construction and positioning once a market downturn is already underway. Although the content discussed in this episode is considered “sophisticated,” we try and make it accessible to the average listener. Topics include the investor mindset, protecting against systemic risk, options pricing, the role of credit in the market cycle, endogenous vs. exogenous risk, agent-based modeling, exchange traded products, volatility, and trend following strategies.  The overtime includes more detailed examples of tactics and strategies that can be deployed in service of risk mitigation and profit making during the type of market-downturn that we are  now experiencing. You can access that overtime, along with the rundown and transcript to this week’s episode throug

In Episode 130 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Gillian Tett, chair of the editorial board and editor-at-large of the Financial Times about America’s new “wartime economy” and the unspoken consequences of the most radical financial and political crisis since World War II. Demetri starts the conversation by asking Gillian what it’s like to run the largest financial newspaper in the world during the greatest economic and political crisis in three generations. The two discuss the latest central bank policy actions, fiscal stimulus, and a series of other timely topics ranging from distressed corporates, emerging markets, dollar funding, and much, much more. If you want to read the transcript to today’s conversation or gain access to the rundown for this episode head over to the Hidden Forces Patreon Page and subscribe to one of our three content tiers. All subscribers gain access to our overtime feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application. By becoming a monthly subscriber yo

In Episode 129 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Josh Crumb, founder & CEO of Abaxx Technologies, which is launching a new commodity futures exchange in Singapore over the next year. Josh was formerly a macro economist and commodity strategist at Goldman Sachs, where he was the head of metals strategy. He is also a co-founder of gold bullion dealer Goldmoney, and Jewelry company Mene.  In their conversation, Josh and Demetri discuss a curious case of backwardation on the COMEX, which is the futures and options market for trading metals in New York. The price of gold in near-dated futures expiring at the end of March spiked by almost 10% to $70 an ounce above the price of obtaining physical gold in London. Only on a handful of occasions since 2000 have gold prices risen more in a single week, including immediately after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in September 2008. Josh Crumb explains what really happened in the early hours of March 24, how disruptions to global supply chains caused b

In Episode 128 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with George Selgin, director of the Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives at the Cato Institute about the recently announced monetary and fiscal policy measures being undertaken to stem the economic fallout from COVID-19 and the government mandated shutdown of the American economy. This is a deep-dive into the specifics of the Federal Reserve and US government’s policies, including the mechanics of the monetary and fiscal stimulus. We are living in unprecedented times. The closest analogy to what we are experiencing is the mobilization undertaken to fight World War II with one crucial difference: this is a radical demobilization of the American economy. To fight the virus, Americans are being asked to stay in their homes and move about as little as possible. In order to survive a prolonged period of commercial inactivity governments have moved swiftly to pass monetary and fiscal stimulus measures that are themselves as unprecedented as the curre